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SEMI-CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION 



M OCCC I.IW 



?mi-C^riitrnii{nl Crlrkatinn. 



FIFTIETH AN^XIYERSARY 



FOUNDING 



NEW YORK HISTORICAL SOCIETY. 



MONDAY, NOVEMBER 20, 1854. 



l^^c.. 



NEW YORK: 
PRINTED FOR THE SOCIETY 

M DCCC LIV. 






JOIIX F. TUOW, PRINTER, 
49 Ann street. 



Officers 0f tljc .Sotictji, 
1854. 

PRESIDENT, 

LUTHER BRADISH. 

FIKST YICE-PRESIDEXT. 

THOMAS DE ^\:ITT. D. D. 

SECOND VIOE-PKESIDEXT, 

FREDERIC DE PEYSTER. 

FOREIGN CORRESPONDING SECRETARY, 

EDWARD ROBINSON, D. D. 

DOMESTIC CORRESPONDING SECRETARY, 

JAMES WILLIAM BEEKMAN. 

RECORDING SECRETARY, 

ANDREW Wx\.RNER. 

TREASURER, 

WILLIAM CHAUNCEY. 

LIBRARIAN, 

GEORGE HENRY MOORE. 



(Buttwll^t Committer 

AUGUSTUS SCHELL, Chairman. 
MAR,SnALL S. BI DWELL. 
BENJAMIN II. FIELD. 
FRANCIS L. HAWKS, D. D. 
JOHN ROMEYN BRODHEAD. 
ERASTUS C. BENEDICT. 
?»LVUNSELL B. FIELD. 



SuMtarp of tit 3£xtcutibt ©ommitttt 
GEORGE HENRY MOORE. 



(committee Df girrangnncnts 

FOR THE ANNIVERSARY, 1854 



LUTHER BKADISH. 
THOMAS DE WITT, D. D. 
FEEDERIO DE PEYSTER. 
EDWARD ROBINSON". 
JAMES WILLIAM BEEKMAN. 
ANDREW WARNER. 
WILLIAM CHAUNCEY. 
GEORGE HENRY MOORE. 
AUGUSTUS SCHELL. 
MARSHALL S. BIDWELL. 
BENJAMIN II. FIELD. 
FRANCIS L. HxVWKS, D. D. 
JOHN ROMEYN BRODHEAD. 
ERASTTJS C. BENEDICT. 
MAUNSELL B. FIELD. 
PROSPER M. WETMORE. 
WILLIAM W. CAMPBELL. 
BENJAMIN R. WINTHROP. 
LUTHER R. MARSH. 
GEORGE BANCROFT. 
WILLIAM ADAMS, D. D. 



THE NECESSITY, THE REALITY, AND THE PROMISE 
OF THE PROGRESS OF THE HUMAN RACE. 



ORATION 



DELIYEKED BEFORE THE 



NEW YORK HISTOEICAL SOCIETY, 



NOVEMBER 20, 1854. 



GEORGE BANCROFT, 

A MEMBER OF THE SOCIETY. 



NEW YORK : 
PRINTED FOR THE SOCIETY. 

M DOOO LIV. 



At a meeting of the New York Historical Society, held at Niblo's Sa- 
loon in the city of New York, for the celebration of the Fiftieth Anniver- 
sary, on Monday afternoon, November 20, 1854, 

"The Rev. George W. Bethune, D. D., submitted the following resolu- 
tion, which was seconded by the Hon. William "W. Campbell, and unani- 
mously adopted : 

"Resolved, That the tliauks of the Society be tendered to the Hon. 
George Bancroft for the able, interesting, and highly instructive address 
which he has delivered on this occasion, and that a copy be reijuested for 
publication." 

Extract from the Minutes : 

ANDREW WARNER, 

Recoeding Secketary. 



Enttred awording to Act of Congress, in the year 1S5-1, by Gkokge Bancroft, in the Clerk's Office of tin Districl 
Court of the United States for the Southern District of New York. 



ORATION. 

Beotiiees, Guests, and Feiends of the New Yoek 
HiSTOEicAL Society : 

We are assembled to celebrate the completion of a 
half century, unequalled in its discoveries and its deeds. 
Man is but the creature of yesterday, and fifty yeai-s 
form a great length in the chain of his entire existence. 
Inferior objects attract the inquirer who would go back 
to remotest antiquity. The student of the chronology 
of the earth may sit on the bluffs that overhang the 
Mississippi, and muse on the myriads of yeai^ during 
wliich the powers of nature have been depositing the 
materials of its delta. He may then, by the aid of in- 
duction, draw nearer to the beginnings of time, as 
he meditates on the succession of ages that assisted to 
construct the cliffs which raise their bastions over the 
stream ; or to bury in compact layers the fern-like 
forests that have stored the bosom of the great valley 
with coal ; or to crystallize the ancient limestone into 
marble ; or, at a still earlier epoch, to compress liquid 
masses of the glol)e into seams of granite. But the 
records of these transitions gain their chief interest 
from their illustrating the revolutions through which our 



8 

planet was fasliioiiecl into a residence for man. Science 
may roam into the abysses of the past, when the earth 
moved silently in its courses without observers ; just as 
it may reach those far-off regions of nebular fields of 
light, whose distance no numbers that the human facul- 
ties may grasp can intelligibly express. But as the 
sublime dwells not in space, so it dwells not in dura- 
tion. To search for it aright, Twe must contemplate the 
higher subject of man. It is but a few centuries since 
he came into life; and yet the study of his nature 
and his destiny surpasses all else that can engage 
his thoughts. At the close of a period which has 
given new proof that unceasing movement is the law 
of all that is finite, we are called upon to observe 
the general character of the changes in his state. Our 
minds irresistibly turn to consider the laws, the cir- 
cumstances and the prospects of his career ; we are led 
to inquire whether his faculties and his relations to the 
universe compel him to a steady course of improve- 
ment ; whether, in the aggregate, he has actually made 
advances ; and what hopes we may cherish respecting 
his future. The occasion invites me to speak to you of 
the NECESSITY, the eeality, and the pkoimise of the pro- 
gress of mankind. 

Since every thing that is limited suffers perpetual 
alteration, the condition of our race is one of growth or 
of decay. It is the glory of man that he is conscious of 
this law of his existence. He alone is gifted with reason 
which looks upward as well as before and after, and 
connects him with the world that is not discerned by 
the senses. He alone has the fiiculty so to combine 
thought with affection, that he can lift up his heart and 
feel not for himself only, but for his brethren and his 



9 

kiud. Every man is in substance equal to liis fellow 
man. His nature is changed neitlier by time nor by 
country. He bears no marks of having risen to his 
present degree of perfection by successive transmuta- 
tions from inferior forms ; but by the peculiarity and 
superiority of his powers he shows himself to have been 
created separate and distinct from all other classes of 
animal life. He is neither degenerating into such dif- 
ferences as could in the end no longer be classified to- 
gether, nor rising into a higher sj^ecies. Each mem- 
ber of the race is in will, affection and intellect, consub- 
stantial with every other ; no passion, no nol)le or de- 
grading affection, no generous or selfish impulse, has 
ever appeared, of which the germ does not exist in 
every breast. No science has been reached, no thought 
generated, no truth discovered, which has not from all 
time existed potentially in every human mind. The 
belief in the progress of the race does not, therefore, 
spring from the supposed possibility of his acc|uiring 
new faculties, or coming into the possession of a new 
nature. 

Still less does truth vary. They speak falsely 
who say that truth is the daughter of time ; it is the 
child of eternity, and as old as the Divine mind. The 
perception of it takes place in the order of time ; truth 
itself knows nothino^ of the succession of ages. Neither 
does morality need to perfect itself ; it is w^hat it al- 
ways has been, and always will be. Its distinctions 
are older than the sea or the dry land, than the earth 
or the sun. The relation of good to evil is from the 
beginning, and is unalterable. 

The progress of man consists in this, tha the him- 
self arrives at the perception of truth. Tlie Divine 
mind, which is its source, left it to be discovered, ap- 
propriated and developed by finite ci-eatures. 



10 

The life of an individual is but a breatli ; it comes 
forth like a flower, and flees like a shadow. Were no 
other progress, therefore, possible than that of the in- 
dividual, one period would have little advantage over 
another. But as every man partakes of the same fac- 
ulties and is consubstantial with all, it follows that the 
race also has an existence of its own ; and this existence 
becomes richer, more varied, free and complete, as time 
advances. Common sense implies by its very name, 
that each individual is to contribute some share toward 
the general intelligence. The many are wiser than the 
few; the multitude than the ^philosopher ; the race 
than the individual ; and each successive generation 
than its predecessor. 

The social condition of a century, its fliith and its 
institutions, are always analogous to its acquisitions. 
Neither philosophy, nor government, nor political in- 
stitutions, nor religious knowledge, can remain much 
behind, or go much in advance, of the totality of con- 
temporary intelligence. The age furnishes to the mas- 
ter-workman the materials with which he builds. The 
outbreak of a revolution is the pulsation of the time, 
healthful or spasmodic, according to its harmony with 
the civilization from w^hicli it spi'iugs. Each new philo- 
sophical system is the heliograph of an evanescent con- 
dition of public thought. The state in which we are, is 
man's natural state at this moment; but it neither 
should be nor can be his permanent state, for his exist- 
ence is flowing on in eternal motion, with nothing fixed 
but the certainty of change. Now, by the necessity of 
the case, the movement of the human mind, taken collec- 
tively, is always toward something better. There ex- 
ists in each individual, alongside of his own personality, 
the ideal man who represents the race. Every one bears 



11 

about within himself the consciousness that his course is 
a struggle ; and perpetually feels the contrast between 
his own limited nature and the better life of which 
he conceives. He cannot state a proposition respect- 
ing a finite object, but it includes also a reference 
to the infinite. He cannot form a judgment, but it 
combines ideal truth and partial error, and, as a conse- 
quence, sets in action tlie antagonism between the true 
and the perfect on the one side, and the false and the 
imperfect on the other ; and in this contest the true and 
the perfect must prevail, for they have the advantage 
of being perennial. 

In public life, by the side of the actual state of the 
world, there exists the ideal state toward which it 
should tend. This antagonism lies at the root of all 
political combinations that ever have been or ever can 
be formed. The elements on which they rest, whether 
in monarchies, aristocracies, or in republics, are but 
three, not one of which can be wanting, or society falls 
to ruin. The course of human destiny is ever a rope of 
three strands. One party may found itself on things as 
they are, and strive for their unaltered perpetuity ; this 
is conservatism, always appearing wherever estaljlished 
interests exist, and never capable of unmingled success, 
because finite things are ceaselessly in motion. Another 
may be based on theoretic principles, and struggle un- 
relentingly to conform society to the absolute law q^ 
Truth and Justice ; and this, though it kindle the purest 
enthusiasm, can likewise never perfectly succeed, because 
the materials of which society is composed partake of 
imperfection, and to extirpate all that is imperfect would 
lead to the destruction of society itself. And there 
may be a third, which seeks to reconcile the two, but 
wliich yet can never thrive by itself, since it depends 



12 

for its activity on tlie clasliiug between the fact and 
the higher law. Without all the three, the fates could 
not spin their thread. As the motions of the solar 
world require the centripetal force, which, by itself 
alone, would consolidate all things in one massive con- 
fusion ; the centrifugal force, w^hich, if uncontrolled, 
would hurl the planets on a tangent into infinite space ; 
and lastly, that reconciling adjustment, which preserves 
the two powers in harmony; so society always has 
within itself the elements of conservatism, of absolute 
right, and of reform. 

The present state of the world is accepted by the 
wise and benevolent as the necessary and natural re- 
sult of all its antecedents. But the statesman, whose 
heart has been purified by the love of his kind, and 
whose purpose solemnized by faith in the immutability 
of justice, seeks to apply every princijole which former 
ages or his own may have mastered, and to make every 
advancement that the culture of his time will sustain. 
In a word, he will never omit an opportunity to lift 
his country out of the inferior sphere of its actual 
condition, into the higher and better sphere that is 
nearer to ideal perfection. 

The merits of great men are to be tested by this cri- 
terion. I speak of the judgment of the race, not of 
the opinion of classes. The latter exalt, and even deify 
the advocates of their selfishness ; and often proportion 
their praise to the daring, with which right and truth 
have been made to succumb to their interests. They 
lavish laurels all the more profusely to hide the bald- 
ness of their heroes. But reputation so imparted is 
like every thing else that rests only on the finite. Vain 
is the applause of factions, or the suffi'ages of those 
whose fortunes are benefited ; fame so attained, must 



13 

pass away- like the interests of classes ; but tlie name 
of those who have studied the well-being of their fel- 
low-men, and in their generation have assisted to raise 
the world from the actual toward the ideal, is repeated 
in all the temples of humanity, and lives not only in its 
intelligence, l3nt in its heart. These are they, whose 
glory calumny cannot tarnish, nor pride beat down. 
Connecting themselves with man's advancement, their 
example never loses its lustre ; and the echo of their 
footstej^s is heard throughout all time with sympathy 
and love. 

The necessity of the progress of the race follows, 
therefore, from the fact, that the great Author of all 
life has left truth in its immutability to be observed, 
and has endowed man with the power of observation 
and generalization. Precisely the same conclusions will 
appear, if w^e contemplate society from the point of 
view of the unity of the universe. The unchanging 
character of law is the only basis on which continuous 
action can rest. Without it man would be but as the 
traveller over endless morasses ; the builder on quick- 
sands ; the mariner without compass or rudder, driven 
successively whithersoever changing winds may blow. 
The universe is the reflex and image of its Creator. 
" The true work of art," says Michael Angelo, " is but 
a shadow of the Divine perfections." We may say in 
a more general manner, that beauty itself is but the 
SENSIBLE IMAGE OF THE INFINITE ; that all crcatiou is 
a manifestation of the Almighty ; not the result of 
caprice, but the glorious display of his perfection ; and 
as the universe thus produced, is always in the course 
of change, so its regulating mind is a living Provi- 
dence, perpetually exerting itself anew. If his de- 
signs could be thwarted, we should lose the great evi- 



14 

deuce of bis unity, as well as the anchor of our own 
hope. 

Harmony is the characteristic of the intellectual 
system of the universe ; and immutable laws of moral 
existence must pervade all time and all space, all ages 
and all worlds. The comparative anatomist has studied, 
analyzed and classified every species of vertebrate ex- 
istence that now walks, or flies, or cree2:)s, or swims, or 
reposes among the fossil remains of lost forms of being ; 
and he discovers that they all without exception are 
analogous ; so that the induction becomes irresistible, 
that an archetype existed previous to the creation of 
the first of the kind. Shall we then hesitate to l)elieve 
that the fixedness of law likewise pervades the moral 
world ? We cannot shut our eyes to the established 
fact, that an ideal, or archetype, presciibed the form of 
animal life ; and shall we not believe that the type of 
all intellectual life likewise exists in the Divine mind ? 

I know that there is a pride which calls this fatal- 
ism, and which rebels at the thought that the Father 
of life should control what he has made. There are 
those who must needs assert for their individual selves 
the constant possession of that power which the great 
English poet represents the bad angels to have lost 
heaven for once attempting to usurp; they are not 
content with being gifted with the faculty of discern- 
ing the counsels of God, and becoming happy by 
conforming to his decrees, Ijut claim the privilege 
of acting irresj^ective of those decrees. Unsatisfied 
with having been created in his image, they assume the 
liberty to counteract his will. They do not perceive 
that cosmical order depends on the universality and 
absolute certainty of law ; that for that end, events in 
their course are not merely as fixed as Ararat and the 



15 

Andes, but follow Laws tbat are miicli older than 
Andes or Ararat, tbat are as old as those which up- 
heaved the mountains. The glory of God is not con- 
tingent on man's good will, but all existence subserves 
his purposes. The system of the universe is as a celes- 
tial poem, whose beauty is from all eternity, and must 
not be marred by human interpolations. Things pro- 
ceed as they were ordered, in their nice, and well-ad- 
justed, and perfect harmony ; so that as the hand of 
the skilful artist gathers music from the harp-strings, 
history calls it forth from the well-tuned chords of time. 
Not that this harmony can be heard during the tumult 
of action. Philosophy comes after events, and gives 
the reason of them, and describes the nature of their 
I'esults. The great mind of collective man may, one 
day, so improve in self-consciousness, as to interpret the 
present and foretell the future ; but as yet, the end of 
what is now happening, though we ourselves partake 
in it, seems to fall out by chance. All is nevertheless one 
whole ; individuals, families, peoples, the race, march in 
accord with the Divine will ; and when any part of 
the destiny of humanity is fulfilled, we see the ways 
of Providence vindicated. The antaii^onisms of im- 
perfect matter and the perfect idea, of liberty and 
necessary law, become reconciled. What seemed irra- 
tional confusion, appears as the web woven by light, 
liberty and love. But this is not perceived till a great 
act in the drama of life is finished. The prayer of the 
patriarch, when he desired to behold the Divinity face 
to face, was denied ; but he was able to catch a glimpse 
of Jehovah, after He had passed by ; and so it fiires 
with our search for Him in the wrestlings of the world. 
It is when the hour of conflict is over, that history 
comes to a right understanding of the strife, and is 



16 

Veacly to exclaim : " Lo ! God is here, and we knew 
it not." At the foot of every page in the annals of 
nations, may be written, " God reigns." Events, as they 
pass away, " proclaim their Great Original ; " and if you 
will but listen reverently, you may hear the receding 
centuries as they roll into the dim distances of departed 
time, perpetually chanting " Te Deum Laudamus," with 
all the choral voices of the countless congregations of 
the nges. 

It is because God is visible in History that its office 
is the noblest except that of the poet. The poet is at 
once the interpreter and tlie favorite of Heaven. He 
catches the first beam of light that flows from its un- 
created source. He repeats the message of the Infinite, 
without always being able to analyze it, and often without 
knowing how he received it, or why he w^as selected for 
its utterance. To him and to him alone history yields in 
dignity ; for she not only watches the great encounters 
of life, but recalls what had vanished, and partaking of a 
bliss like that of creating, restores it to animated being. 
The mineralogist takes special delight in contemplating 
the process of crystallization, as though he had caught 
nature at her work as a geometrician ; giving herself 
up to be gazed at without concealment such as she ap- 
pears in the very moment of exertion. But history, as 
she reclines in the" lap of eternity, sees the mind of 
humanity itself engaged in formative eftbrts, construct- 
ing sciences, promulgating laws, organizing common- 
wealths, and displaying its energies in the visible 
movement of its intelligence. Of all pursuits that 
require analysis, history, therefore, stands first. It is 
equal to philosophy ; for as certainly as the actual 
bodies forth the ideal, so certainly does history contain 



17 

pliilosopliy. It is grander tlian the natural sciences ; 
for its study is man, the last work of creation, and the 
most joerfect in its relations with the Infinite. 

In surveying the short period since man was created, 
the proofs of progress are so abundant that we do not 
know with which of them to begin, or how they should 
be classified. He is seen in the earliest stages of society, 
bare of abstract truth, unskilled in the methods of 
induction, and hardly emancipated from bondage to 
the material universe. How wonderful is it, then, that 
a being whose first condition was so weak, so humble, 
and so naked, and of whom no monument older than 
forty centuries can be found, should have accumulated 
such fruitful stores of intelligence and have attained 
such perfection of culture ! 

Look round upon this beautiful earth, this tempe- 
rate zone of the solar system, and see how much man 
has done for its subjection and adornment; making 
the wilderness blossom with cities, and the seemingly 
inhospitable sea cheerfully social with the richly- 
freighted fleets of world- Avide commerce. Look also 
at the condition of society, and consider by what 
amenities barbarism has been softened and refined ; 
what guarantees of intelligence and liberty have super- 
seded the lawlessness of brute force, and what copious 
interchanges of thought and love have taken the j^lace 
of the sombre stolidity of the savage. The wander- 
ings of the nations are greater now than ever in time 
past, and productive of happier results. Peaceful emi- 
gration sets more myriads in motion than all the hordes 
of armed barbarians, whether Gauls or Scythians, Goths 
or Huns, Scandinavians or Saracens, that ever burst 
from the steppes of Asia and the Northern nurseries 
of men. Our own city gives evidence that the civilizea 



18 

world is becoming one federation ; for, its storehouses 
exhibit all products, from furs that are whitened by 
Arctic snows, to spices ripened by the burning sun 
of the equator; and its people is the representative 
of all the cultivated nations of Europe. 

Every clime is tasked also to enlarge the boundaries 
of knowledge. Minerals that lie on the peaks of the 
Himalayas, animals that hide in the densest jungles of 
Africa, flowers that bloom in the solitudes of Sumatra, 
or the trackless swamps along the Amazon, are brought 
within the observation and domain of science. 

With equal diligence the internal structure of plants 
and animals has been subjected to examination. We 
may gaze w^ith astonishment at the advances which the 
past fifty years have made in the science of compara- 
tive physiology. By a most laborious and long con- 
tinued use of the microscope, and by a vast number of 
careful and minute dissections, man has gained such 
insight into animal being, as not only to define its 
primary groups, but almost to draw the ideal archetype 
that preceded their creation. Not content with the 
study of his own organization and the comparison of 
it with the Fauna of every zone, he has been able to 
count the pulsations of the heart of a caterpillar ; to 
watch the flow of blood through the veins of the silk- 
worm ; to enumerate the millions of living things that 
dwell in a drop of water ; to take the census of crea- 
tures so small, that parts of their members remain in- 
visible to the most powerful microscope ; to trace the 
lungs of the insect which floats so gayly on the limber 
fans of its win^rs, and revels in the full fruition of its 
transcendent powers of motion. 

The astronomer, too, has so perfected his skill, that 
he has weighed in the balance some, even, of the stars. 



19 

and marked tlie course and the period of their revolu- 
tions ; while, within the limits of our own system, he 
has watched the perturbations of the wandering fires, 
till he has achieved his crowning victory by discover- 
ing a p'iori the existence and the place of an exterior 
planet. 

I have reminded you of the few hundreds of years 
during which man has been a tenant of earth, and of 
the great proportion that the last half century bears to 
the whole of his existence. Let us consider this more 
closely ; for I dare assert that, in some branches of 
human activity, the period we commemorate has done 
more for his instruction and improvement than all 
which went before. 

I do not here refer to our own country, because it 
is altogether new, though its growth merits a passing 
remark ; for within this time the area of our land has 
been so extended that a similar increase, twice re- 
peated, would carry the staes and steipes to the 
polar ice and to the isthmus; while our population 
now exceeds fivefold all who existed at the end of the 
two previous centuries, and probably outnumbers all 
the generations that sleep beneath the soil. I speak 
rather of results in which the old world takes its share ; 
and I will begin tlie enumeration by reference to an 
improvement which we may delight to consider our 
own. Your thoughts go in advance of me to recall 
the fiict, that since our Society was organized, steam 
was first employed for both interior and oceanic 
navigation. AVe, beothees of the New Yoek His- 
TOEiCAL Society, remember wdth pride that this great 
achievement in behalf of the connection and the unity 
of ther world, is due to the genius of one of our mem- 
bers, and the encouragement of another, to Robeet 
Fulton and to Kobeet R. Livingston. 



20 

The same superiority belongs to this age in refer- 
ence to the construction of the means of internal 
communication. What are all the artificial channels 
of travel and of commerce that previously existed, 
compared with the canals and railroads constructed 
in our time ? I shall not pause to estimate the 
number of these newly made highways; their col- 
lective length; their capacity for journeyings and 
for trade; I leave to others to contrast the occa- 
sional Oriental or African caravan with the daily 
freight-train on one of our iron pathways; the post- 
chaise, the stage-coach, and the diligence with the 
incessant movement in the canal boats and the flying 
cars of the railroad. Yet in your presence, my beoth- 
EES, remembering the eleven men who, fifty years ago, 
met and organized our society, I must for an instant 
direct attention to the system which connects our own 
Hudson with the basins of the St. Lawrence, of the 
Delaware, of the Susquehanna and of the Mississippi. 
This magnificent work, one of the noblest triumphs 
of civilized man, so friendly to peace and industry, to 
national union and true glory, was effected through 
the special instrumentality of one of our original foun- 
ders and most active meml^ers; the same De Witt 
CLmTON, who in days when the city of New York was 
proud of her enlightened magistracy, was at the head 
of her munici23al government, esteeming it a part of 
his public duty to care disinterestedly for the welfare 
of science, and^the fame of the great men of the 
country. 

The half century which now closes, is likewise 
found to surpass all others, if we consider the extent 
of its investigations into the history of the earth. 
Geology, in that time, has assumed a severe scientific 



21 

form, doing the liigliest honor, not merely to the in- 
dividual men who have engaged in the pursuit, but to 
human nature itself, by the persevering application of 
inductive reasoning, and the imperturbal^le serenity 
with which seemins^ contradictions have been studied 
till they have been found to confirm the general laws. 
Thus the geologist has been able to ascertain, in some 
degree, the chronology of our planet ; to [demonstrate 
the regularity of its structure where it seemed most 
disturbed ; and where nature herself was at fault, and 
the trail of her footsteps broken, to restore the just ar- 
rangement of strata that had been crushed into confu- 
sion, or turned over in apparently inexplicable and in- 
congruous folds. He has perused the rocky tablets on 
which time-honored nature has set her inscriptions. He 
has opened the massive sepulchres of departed forms of 
being, and pored over the copious records preserved 
there in stone, till they have revealed the majestic 
march of creative power, from the organism of the 
zoophyte entombed in the lowest dej^ths of Siluria, 
through all the rising gradations of animal life, up to 
its sublimest result in God-like man. ' 

Again : It is only in our day that the sun has been 
taught to do the work of an artist, and in obedience to 
man's will, the great wave of light in its inconceivable 
swiftness is compelled to delineate with inimitable ex- 
actness any object that the eye of day looks upon. 

Of the nature of electricity, more has been discov- 
ered in the last fifty years than in all past time, not 
even excepting the age when our own Franklin called 
it from the clouds. This aerial invisible power has 
learnt to fly as man's faithful messenger, till the mystic 
wires tremble with his passions and bear his errands 
on the wings of lightning. He divines how this ageu- 



22 

cy which holds the globe in its invisible embrace, guides 
floating atoms to their places in the crystal ; or teaches 
the mineral ores the lines in which they should move, 
where to assemble together, and where to lie down and 
take their rest. It whispers to the meteorologist the 
secrets of the atmosphere and the skies. For the 
chemist in his laboratory it perfects the instruments of 
heat, dissolves the closest affinities, and reunites the sun- 
dered elements. It joins the artisan at his toil, and 
busily employed at his side, this subtlest and swiftest 
of existences tamely applies itself to its task, with pa- 
tient care reproduces the designs of the engraver or 
the plastic art, and disposes the metal with a skilful 
delicacy and exactness which the best workman cannot 
rival. Nay more : it enters into the composition of 
man himself, and is ever present as the inmost witness 
of his thou2:hts and volitions. These are discoveries 
of our time. 

But enough of this contrast of the achievement of 
one age with that of all preceding ones. It may seem 
to be at variance with our theme, that as republican 
institutions gain ground, avoman appears less on the 
theatre of events. She, whose presence in this briary 
world is as a lily among thorns, whose smile is pleasant 
like the light of morning, and Avhose eye is the gate of 
heaven ; she, whom nature so reveres, that the lovely 
veil of her spirit is the best terrestrial emblem of beauty, 
must cease to command armies or reign supreme over 
nations. Yet the progress of liberty, while it has 
made her less conspicuous, has redeemed her into 
the possession of the full dignity of her nature, has 
made her not man's slave, but his companion, his 
counsellor, and fellow-martyr ; and, for an occasional 
ascendency in political affairs has substituted the uni- 



25 

form enjoyment of domestic equality. The avenue to 
active public life seems closed against her, but without 
impairing her 2:)o\ver over mind, or her fame. The lyre 
is as obedient to her touch, the muse as coming to her 
call, as to that of man ; and truth in its purity finds no 
more honored interpreter. 

When comparisons are drawn between longer pe- 
riods, the i^rogress of the race appears from the change 
in the condition of its classes. Time knows no holier 
mission than to assert the rights of labor, and it 
has, in some measure, been mindful of the duty. 
Were Aristotle and Plato to come among us, they 
would find no contrast more complete than between 
the workshops of their Athens, and those of New 
York. In their day the bondman practised the me- 
chanic arts ; nor was it conceived that the world could 
do its work except by the use of slaves. But labor de- 
serves and has the right to be dignified and ennobled, 
and the auspicious revolution in its condition has begun. 
Here the mechanic, at the shipyard, or the iron-works, 
or wherever may be the task of his choice, owns no 
master on earth ; and while, by the careful study and 
employment of the forces of nature, he multiplies his 
powers, he sweetens his daily toil by the consciousness 
of personal independence, and the enjoyment of his 
acknowledged claim to honor no less than to reward. 

The fifty years which we celel^rate, have taken 
mighty strides toward the abolition of servitude. 
Prussia, in the hour of its sufferings and its greatest ca- 
lamities, renovated its existence partly by the estab- 
lishment of schools, and partly by changing its serfs 
into a proprietary peasantry. In Hungary the attempt 
toward preserving the nationality of the Magyars may 
have failed ; but the last vestiges of bondage have been 



24 

effaced, and the holders of the plough have become the 
owners of themselves and of its soil. 

If events do, as I believe, correspond to the Divine 
idea; if God is the fountain of all goodness, the iii- 
spirer of true affection, the source of all intelligence; 
there is nothing of so great moment to the race as the 
conception of his existence ; and a true apprehensioD 
of his relations to man must constitute the turning 
point in the progress of the world. And it has been 
so. A better knowledo:e of his nature is the dividing 
line that separates ancient history from modern ; the 
old time from the new. The thought of Divine unity 
as an absolute cause was familiar to antiquity ; but the 
undivided testimony of the records of all cultivated na- 
tions shows that it took no hold of the pojDular affec- 
tions. Philosophers might conceive this Divine unit}- 
as purest action, unmixed with matter ; as fate, folding 
the universe in its invincible, unrelenting grasp ; as, 
reason, going forth to the work of creation ; as the 
primal source of the ideal archetypes, according to 
which the world was fashioned ; as boundless power, 
careless of boundless existence ; as the infinite one, slum- 
bering unconsciously in the infinite all. Nothing of 
this could take hold of the common mind, or make 

'• Peor and Baalim 
Forsake their temples dim," ,'; 

or thi'ow down the altars of superstition. 

For the regeneration of the world, it was requisite 
that the Divine Being should enter into the abodes and 
the hearts of men, and dwell there ; that a belief in 
him should be received, which should include all truth 
respecting his essence ; that he should be known not 
only as an abstract and absolute cause, but as the infi- 



25 

nite fountain of moral excellence and beauty ; not as a 
distant Providence of boundless power, and uncertain 
or inactive will, but as God present in tbe flesli ; not as 
an absolute lawgiver, holding the material world and 
all intelligent existence in the chains of necessity, but 
as a creative spirit, indwelling in man, his fellow- 
worker and guide. 

When the Divine Being was thus presented to the 
soul, he touched at once man's aspirations, affections 
and intelligence, and faith in him sunk into the in- 
most heart of humanity. In vain did restless pride, as 
that of Arjus, seek to paganize Christianity and make 
it the ally of imperial despotism ; to prefer a belief 
resting on authority and unsupported by an inward 
witness, over the clear revelation of which the millions 
might see and feel and know the divine glory ; to sub- 
stitute the conception, framed after the pattern of hea- 
thenism, of an agent, superhuman yet finite, for faith in 
the ever-continuing presence of God with man; to 
wrong the greatness and sanctity of the Spirit of God 
by representing it as a Ijirth of time. Against these 
attempts to subordinate the enfranchising virtue of 
truth to false worship and to arbitrary power, rea- 
son asserted its supi'emacy, and the party of super- 
stition was driven from the field. Then mooned 
Ashtaroth was eclipsed, and Osiris was seen no more 
in Memphian grove; then might have been heard 
the crash of the falling temples of Polytheism ; and, 
instead of them, came that harmony which holds 
Heaven and Earth in happiest union. 

Amid the deep sorrows of humanity during the 
sad conflict which was protracted through centuries for 
the overthrow of the past and the reconstruction of 
society, the consciousness of an incarnate God carried 



26 

peace into tlie bosom of mankind. That faith emanci- 
pated the slave, l^roke the bondage of woman, re- 
deemed the captive, elevated the low, lifted up the op- 
pressed, consoled the wretched, inspired alike the heroes 
of thouorht and the countless masses. The downtrod- 
den nations clung to it as to the certainty of their future 
emancijiation ; and it so filled the heart of the greatest 
poet of the Middle Ages — ^}3erhaps the greatest poet of 
all time — that he had no prayer so earnest as to behold 
in the profound and clear substance of the eternal light, 
that circling of reflected glory which showed the image 
of man. 

From the time that this truth of the triune God 
was clearly announced, he was no longer dimly con- 
ceived as a remote and shadowy causality, but apj^eared 
as all that is good and beautiful and true ; as goodness 
itself, incarnate and interceding, redeeming and inspir- 
ing ; the union of liberty, love, and light ; the infinite 
cause, the infinite mediator, the infinite in and with the 
universe, as the paraclete and comforter. The doctrine 
once communicated to man, was not to be eradicated. 
It spread as widely, as swiftly, and as silently as light, 
and the idea of God with us dwelt and dwells in every 
system of thought that can pretend to vitality; in 
every oppressed people, whose struggles to be free have 
the promise of success ; in every soul that sighs for re- 
demption. 

This brings me to the last division of my subject. 
That God has dwelt and dwells with humanity is not 
only the noblest illustration of its nature, but the per- 
fect guarantee for its progress. We are entering on a 
new era in the history of the race, and though we can- 
not cast its horoscope, we at least may in some measure 
discern the course of its motion. 



27 

Here we are met at the ver}^ tliresliold of our 
argument by au afterbirth of the materialism of the 
last century. A system which professes to re-construct 
society on the simple observation of the laws of the 
visible universe, and which is presented with arrogant 
pretension under the name of the "Positive Philoso- 
phy," sco&s at all questions of metaphysics and reli- 
gious foith as insoluble and unworthy of human atten- 
tion; and affects to raise the banner of an affirming 
belief in the very moment that it describes its main 
characteristic as a refusal to recognise the infinite. 
How those who own no source of knowledge but the 
senses, can escape its humiliating yoke, I leave them to 
discover. But it is as little entitled to be feared as to 
be received. When it has put together all that it can 
collect of the laws of the material universe, it can ad- 
vance no further toward the" explanation of existence, 
morals, or reason. They who listen to the instructions 
of inward experience, may smile at the air of wisdom 
with which a scheme that has no basis in the soul is 
presented to the world as a new universal creed, the 
Catholic Church of the materialist. Its handful of 
acolytes wonder why they i-emain so few. But Athe- 
ism never holds sway over human thought except as 
a usurper ; no child of its own succeeding. Error is a 
convertible term with decay. Falsehood and death are 
synonymes. Falsehood can gain no permanent foot- 
hold in the immortal soul ; for there can be no abiding 
or real faith, except in that which is eternally and uni- 
versally true. The future will never ^iroduce a race of 
atheists, and their casual appearance is but the evi- 
dence of some ill-understood truth ; some mistaken di- 
rection of the human mind ; some perverse or imper- 
fect view of creation. The atheist denies the life of 



28 

life, wliicli is tlie source of liberty. Proclaiming him- 
self a mere finite thing of to-day, he rejects all con- 
nection Avitli the infinite. Pretending to search for 
truth, he abjures the spirit of truth. Were it possible 
that the world of mankind could become without God, 
that greatest death, the death of the race would ensue. 
It is because man cannot separate himself from his 
inward experience and his yearning after the infinite, 
that he is capable of progress ; that he can receive a 
religion whose history is the triumph of right over 
evil, whose symbol is the resurrection. 

The reciprocal relation between God and humanity 
constitutes the unity of the race. The more complete 
recognition of that unity is the first great promise 
which we receive from the future. Nations have, in- 
deed, had their separate creeds and institutions and 
homes. The commonwealth of mankind, as a great 
whole, was not to be constructed in one generation. 
But the different peoples are to be considered as 
its comjDonent parts, prepared, like so many springs 
and wheels, one day to be put together. 

Every thing tends to that consummation. Geogra- 
2:)hical research has penetrated nearly every part of the 
world, revealed the paths of the ocean, and chronicled 
even the varying courses of the winds ; while commerce 
circles the glol)e. At our Antipodes, a new continent, 
lately tenanted only by the wildest of men and the 
strangest products of nature, the kangaroo and the 
quadruped witli the bill of a bird, becomes an outpost 
of civilization, one day to do service in regenerating 
the world. 

In this great work our country holds the no- 
blest rank. Rome subdued the regions round the 
Mediterranean and the Euxine, both inland seas; the 



29 

German Empire spread from the German Ocean to the 
Adriatic. Our land extends far into the wilderness, 
and beyond the wilderness ; and Avhile on this side the 
great mountains it gives the Western nations of Europe 
a theatre for the renewal of their youth, on the trans- 
montane side, the hoary civilization of the farthest 
antiquity leans forward from Asia to receive the glad 
tidino^s of the messenirer of freedom. The islands of 
the Pacific entreat our protection, and at our suit the 
Empire of Japan breaks down its wall of exclusion. 

Our land is not more the recipient of the men of 
all countries than of their ideas. Annihilate the past 
of any one leading nation of the world, and our des- 
tiny would have been changed. Italy and Spain, in 
the persons of Coltoibus and Isabella, joined together 
for the great discovery that opened America to emi- 
gration and commerce ; France contributed to its inde- 
pendence ; the search for the origin of the language 
we speak carries us to India; our religion is from 
Palestine ; of the hymns sung in our churches, some 
were first heard in Italy, some in the deserts of Arabia, 
some on the banks of the Euphrates ; our arts come 
from Greece; our jurisprudence from Rome; our mari- 
time code from Russia ; England taught us the system 
of Representative Government ; the noble Republic 
of the United Provinces bequeathed to us in tlie Avorld 
of thought, the great idea of the toleration of all 
opinions ; in the world of action, the prolific principle 
of federal union. Our country stands, therefore, more 
than any other as the realization of the unity of the race. 

There is one institution so wide in its influence and 
its connections, that it may already be said to represent 
the intelligence of universal man. I have reserved to 
this place a reference to the power, which has obtained 



30 

its majestic development witliiii the last fifty years, 
till it now forms the controlling agency in renovating 
civilization ; surpassing in the extent and effectiveness- 
of its teachings the lessons of the Academy and of 
the pulpit. The invisible force of the magnetic ether 
does not more certainly extend throughout the air and 
the earth, than the press gives an impulse to the wave 
of thought, so that it vibrates round the globe. The 
diversity of nationalities and of governments continues ; 
the press illustrates the unity of our intellectual world, 
and constitutes itself the organ of collective humanity. 

By the side of the press, the system of free schools, 
though still very imperfectly developed, has made such 
progress since it first dawned in Geneva and in parishes 
of Scotland, that we are authorized to claim it of the 
future as a universal institution. 

The moment we enter upon an enlarged considera- 
tion of existence, we may as well believe in beings 
that are higher than ourselves, as in those that are 
lower ; nor is it absurd to inquire whether there is a 
plurality of worlds. Induction warrants the opinion, 
that the planets and the stars are tenanted or are to 
be tenanted, by inhabitants endowed with reason ; for 
though man is but a new comer upon earth, the lower 
animals had appeared through unnumbered ages, like 
a long twilight before the day. Some indeed tremu- 
lously inquire, how it may be in those distant spheres 
with regard to redemption? But the scruple is un- 
called for. Since the Mediator is from the begin- 
ning, he exists for all intelligent creatures not less 
than for all time. It is very narrow and contradictory 
to confine his office to the planet on which we dwell. 
In other worlds the facts of history may be, or rather, 
by all the laws of induction, will be diflerent ; but the 



31 

essential relations of the finite to the infinite are, and 
must be, invariable. It is not more certain that the 
power of gravity extends through the visible universe, 
than that throughout all time and all space, there is 
but one mediation between God and created reason. 
But leaving aside the question, how far rational life 
extends, it is certain that on earth the capacity of coming 
into connection with the infinite is the distinguishing- 
mark of our kind, and proves it to be one. Here, too, 
is our solace for the indisputable fact, that humanity in 
its upvv^ard course passes through the shadows of death, 
and over the relics of decay. Its march is strown 
with the ruins of formative efforts, that were never 
crowned with success. How often does the just man 
suffer, and sometimes suffer most for his brightest vir- 
tues ! How often do noblest sacrifices to regenerate a 
nation seem to have been offered in vain ! How often 
is the champion of liberty struck down in the battle, 
and the symbol which he uplifted, trampled under 
foot ! But what is the life of an individual to that of 
his country ? Of a state, or a nation, at a given mo- 
ment, to that of the race ? The just man would cease 
to l^e just, if he were not willing to perish for his kind. 
The scoria that fly from the iron at the stroke of the 
artisan, show how busily he plies his task ; the clay 
which is rejected from the potter's wheel, proves the 
progress of his work; the chips of marble that are 
thrown off by the chisel of the sculptor, leave the mir- 
acle of beauty to grow under his hand. Nothing is 
lost. I leave to others the questioning of Infinite 
power, why the parts are distributed as they are, and 
not otherwise. Humanity moves on, attended by its 
glorious comjiany of martyrs. It is our consolation, 
that their sorrows and persecution and death are en- 
countered in the common cause, and not in vain. 



32 

The world is just beginning to take to heart this 
principle of the unity of the race, and to discover how 
fully and how beneficently it is fraught with interna- 
tional, political, and social revolutions. Without at- 
temj)ting to unfold what the greater wisdom of coming 
generations can alone adequately conceive and practi- 
cally apply, we may observe, that the human mind 
tends not only toward unity, but universality. 

Infinite truth is never received without some ad- 
mixture of error, and in the struggle Avhich necessarily 
ensues between the two, the error constantly undergoes 
the process of elimination. Investigations are con- 
tinued without a pause. The explanatory hyj^othesis, 
perpetually renewed, receives perpetual correction. 
Fresli observations detect the fallacies in the former 
hypotliesis ; again, mind, acting a iwiori^ revises its 
theory, of which it repeats and multiplies the tests. 
Thus it proceeds from observation to hypothesis, and 
from hypothesis to observation, progressively gaining 
clearer perceptions, and more perfectly mastering its 
stores of accumulated knowledge by generalizations 
which approximate nearer and nearer to absolute truth. 

With each successive year, a larger number of 
minds in each separate nationality inquires into man's 
end and nature ; and as truth and the laws of God are 
unchangeable, the more that engage in their study, the 
greater will be the harvest. Nor is this all ; the na- 
tions are drawn to each other as members of one fami- 
ly; and their nmtual acquisitions become a common 
property. 

In this manner, truth, as discerned by the mind of 
man, is constantly recovering its primal lustre, and 
is steadily making its w^ay toward general accepts 
ance. Not that greater men will appear. Who can 



33 

ever embody tlie liigli creative imagination of the poet 
more perfectly than Ho^iek, or Dante, or Shake- 
speare? Who can discern "the ideas" of existences 
more clearly than Plato, or l)e furnished with all the 
instruments of thought and scientific attainment more 
completely than Aristotle ? To what future artist 
will beauty be more intimately present, than to Phidias 
or Raphael ? In universality of mind, who will sur- 
pass Bacon, or Leibnitz, or Kant ? Indeed, the world 
may never again see their peers. There are not want- 
ing those who believe, that the more intelligence is dif- 
fused, the less will the intelligent be distinguished from 
one another ; that the colossal greatness of individuals 
implies a general inferiority ; just as the solitary tree 
on the plain alone reaches the fullest development ; or 
as the rock that stands by itself in the wilderness, 
seems to cast the widest and most grateful shade ; in 
a word, that the day of mediocrity attends the day 
of general culture. But if wiser men do not arise, 
there will certainly be more wisdom. The collec- 
tive man of the future will see further, and see more 
clearly, than the collective man of to-day, and he will 
share his superior power of vision and his attain- 
ments with every one of his time. Thus it has come 
to pass, that the child now at school could instruct 
Columbus respecting the figure of the earth, or Newton 
respecting light, or Franklin on electi'icity ; that the 
husbandman or the mechanic of a Christian congrega- 
tion solves questions respecting God and man and 
man's destiny, which perjDlexed the most gifted phi- 
losophers of ancient Greece. 

Finally, as a consequence of the tendency of the 
race towards unity and universality, the organization 
of society must more and more conform to the pi-inci- 

3 



34 

pie of FREEDO^r. This will be tlie last triumph ; partly 
because the science of government enters into the 
sj)here of personal interests, and meets resistance from 
private selfishness ; and partly because society, before 
it can be constituted aright, must turn its eye upon 
itself, observe the laws of its own existence, and arrive 
at the consciousness of its capacities and relations. 

The system of political economy may solve the 
question of the commercial intercourse of nations, 
by demonstrating that they all are naturally fellow- 
workers and friends ; but its abandonment of labor to 
the unmitigated effects of personal competition can 
never be accepted as the rule for the dealings of man 
with man. The love for others and for the race is as 
much a part of human nature as the love of self ; it is 
a common instinct that man is responsible for man. 
The heart has its oracles, not less than the reason, and 
this is one of them. No practicable system of social 
equality has been brought forward, or it should, and it 
would have been adopted ; it does not follow that none 
can be devised, for there is no necessary opposition be- 
tween handcraft and intelligence ; and the masses them- 
selves will gain the knowledge of their rights, courage 
to assert them, and self-respect to take nothing less. 
The good time is coming, when humanity will recog- 
nise all members of its family as alike entitled to its 
care ; when the heartless jargon of over-production 
in the midst of want will end in a better science of 
distribution ; when man will dwell with man as with 
his brother ; when political institutions will rest on 
the basis of equality and freedom. 

But this result must flow from internal activity 
developed by universal culture ; it cannot be created 
by the force of exterior philanthrojjy ; and still less by 



35 

the reckless violence of men whose desperate audacity 
would employ terror as a means to ride on the whirl- 
wind of civil war. Where a permanent reform appears 
to have been instantaneously effected, it will 1)e found 
that the happy result was but the sudden plucking of 
fruit which had slowly ripened. Successful revolutions 
proceed like all other formative processes from in- 
ward germs. The institutions of a j)eople are always 
the reflection of its heart and its intelligence ; and 
in proportion as these are purified and enlightened, 
must its public life manifest the dominion of universal 
reason. 

The subtle and irresistible movement of mind 
silently but thoroughly correcting opinion and chano-- 
ing society, brings liberty both to the soul and to the 
world. All the desj^otisms on earth cannot stay its 
coming. Every fallacy that man discards is an emanci- 
pation ; every superstition that is thrown by, is a re- 
deeming from captivity. The tendency towards uni- 
versality implies necessarily a tendency towards free- 
dom, alike of thought and in action. The faith of the 
earliest ages was of all others the grossest. Every cen- 
tury of the Christian Church is less corrupt and less in 
bondage than its predecessor. The sum of spiritual 
knowledge as well as of liberty is greater, and less 
mixed with error now, than ever before. The future 
shall surpass the present. The senseless strife between 
rationalism and supernaturalism will come to an end ; 
an age of skepticism will not again be called an age 
of reason ; and reason and religion will be found in 
accord. 

In the sphere of politics the Republican Govern- 
ment has long been the aspiration of the w ise. " The 
human race," said Dante, summing up the experience 



36 

of the Middle Age, " is in the best condition, when 
it has the greatest degree of liberty;" and Kant, 
in like manner, giving utterance to the last word 
of Protestantism, declared the republican government 
to be " the only true civil constitution." Its permanent 
establishment presupposes meliorating experience and 
appropriate culture ; but the circumstances under which 
it becomes possible, prevail more and more. Our coun- 
try is bound to allure the world to freedom by the 
beauty of its example. 

The course of civilization flows on like a mighty 
river through a boundless valley, calling to the streams 
from every side to swell its current, which is always 
growing wider, and deeper, and clearer, as it rolls along. 
Let us trust ourselves upon its bosom without fear ; 
nay, rather with confidence and joy. Since the pro- 
gress of the race appears to be the great purpose of 
Providence, it becomes us all to venerate the future. 
We must be ready to sacrifice ourselves for our suc- 
cessors, as they in their turn must live for their pos- 
terity. We are not to be disheartened, that the in- 
timate connection of humanity renders it impossible 
for any one portion of the civilized world to be much 
ill advance of all the rest ; nor are we to grieve be- 
caiise an unalterable condition of perfection can never 
be attained. Every thing is in movement, and for the 
better, except only the fixed eternal law by which the 
necessity of change is established ; or rather except 
only God, who includes in himself all being, all truth, 
and all love. The subject of man's thoughts remains 
the same, but the sum of his acquisitions ever grows 
with time ; so that his last system of philosophy is 
the best, for it includes every one that went before. 



37 

The last political state of the world, likewise, is ever 
more excellent than the old, for it presents in activity 
the entire inheritance of truth, fructified by the living 
mind of a more enlightened generation. 

You, BROTHEES, who are joined together for the 
study of history, receive the lighted torch of civiliza- 
tion from the departing half-century, and hand it along 
to the next. In fulfilling this glorious office, remember 
that the principles of justice and sound philosophy are 
but the inspirations of common sense, and belong of 
right to all mankind. Carry them forth, therefore, to 
the whole people ; for so only can society build itself 
up on the imperishable groundwork of universal free- 
dom. 



ERRATUM. 
Page 27, line 18, for 

morals or reason. They who listen to the instructions, 

read 

morals or reason. 

Philosophy, which leaned on Heaven before, 
Shrinks to her second cause, and is no more. 

They who listen to the instructions &,c. 



PHOCEEDINOS 



NEW YOEK HISTORICAL SOCIETY, 



SEMI-CENTENNIAL ANNIVERSARY, 



MONDAY, NOVEMBER 20, 1854. 



NEW YORK: 
PRINTED FOR THE SOCIETY, 

H DOCO LIV. 



|0rk JnsUxial Batut^, 



cele:biia.tion 



J^IFTIETH ANNIVERSARY, 



NOVEMBER 20, 1854. 



This leing the Fiftieth Anniversary of the Founding of the 
New ^Drk Historical Society, in accordance with previous ar- 
rangements the officers and members of the Society assembled 
at theiryooms, in the University of the city of New York, at 
two o'cl(ck, p. M., where their guests were received and intro- 
duced to the President. 

At hilf past two o'clock, the officers and members of the So- 
ciety, wilh their guests, proceeded to Niblo's Saloon, where a 
numeroui and brilliant audience already occupied the seats in 
the hous( not reserved for the Society. After an overture by 
the orchstra, under the direction of Mr. Harvey B. Dodworth, 
the exerdses of the day were opened by the President, who 
made the following remarks : 

Fellow-ahmbers of the Society, and Ladies and Gentlemen : 

Fifty jears have rolled their ceaseless tide along the current of 
Time, sines a few enlightened men laid in weakness, but with wise 
forecast, tie foundations of the New York Historical Society. This 



42 

iustitution, through varying fortunes, but with ever-increasing effort? 
and expanding usefulness, has already reached the close of the firit 
half century of its existence ; and we are now assembled to celebrale 
the first semi-centennial anniversary of its origin. The anniversary 
address will be delivered by Mr. Bancroft. The exercises of tie 
occasion will commence with prayer to be offered by the Rev. Ir. 
De Witt, first Vice-President of the Society. 

PRAYER. 

thou High, and Holy One, who inhabitest eternity, and im- 
mensity ; Sovereign Ruler and Lord of All, thine is the kingcom, 
and power, and glory. We bow before thee at thy footstool. While 
thy throne is founded in justice, and judgment, we thank thee,that 
polluted and guilty as we are, we may approach thee with hunble 
confidence in the name of our Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ who 
has abolished death, and brought life and immortality to ligit by 
his gospel. We thank thee for all the mercies of thy ProvUence 
which we partake individually, and in our domestic and socia rela- 
tions. We thank thee especially for all thy favors extended to us, 
and all the blessings poured forth upon the people of these Jnited 
States. We revert to a little more than two centuries am a half 
since, when the first colonists came with the open Bible, tie open 
school, and the open sanctuary, and now realize that the " haidful of 
corn " then sown " shakes like Lebanon," and that the " vuc thou 
didst plant when the heathen were cast before it has talen deep 
root, has spread its branches from sea to sea," bearing frvit which 
shall be for the healing of the nations. We hold in mem cry before 
thy throne our ancestry, the wise men in counsel, and the /aliant in 
the field, and trace their onward course in the struggle f)r liberty, 
the attainment of our independence, and the formation of car Consti- 
tution under which we have dwelt so quietly and prosperoisly. We 
would exclaim. "What hath God wrought?" in view of tie wonder- 
ful growth of our population, the results of active industr; in its va- 
rious departments, and our national influence which is spreading 
abroad through the world. May wisdom and knowledge be the sta- 
bility of our times. May righteousness ever exalt us, and sin never 
be our reproach. We pray for all in authority, and vho are in- 
trusted to bear rule in our national and respective Stite govern- 
ments. May they be men fearing God, hating covetcusness, and 
prove a blessing to the people over whom they are placel. Assem- 
bled at the jubilee anniversary of the New York Historiial Society, 



43 

we thank thee for its institution, and the success which has attended 
it. Grant thy blessing upon it continually, and bless kindred insti- 
tutions in search of materials to fill up the history of our country. 
Bless all institutions designed to spread education, mental, moral, 
and spiritual, and to remove the sins and suiferings of men. Be 
with us as now assembled, and be with him who has consented to ad- 
dress us, and may we feel that the influence and result of this meet- 
ing is to increase our feelings of Christian patriotism and Christian 
philanthropy. All we ask is in the name of our adored, and pre- 
cious Redeemer, who has taught us to pray, " Our Father who art in 
Heaven, hallowed be thy name ; thy kingdom come ; thy will be 
done on earth as it is done in Heaven ; give us this day our daily 
bread ; forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass 
against us ; and lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from 
evil ; for thine is the kingdom, and power, and glory, for ever and 
ever. Amen." 

The prayer being concludedj the oration was delivered by 
tlie Hon. George Bancroft. At the conclusion of the ora- 
tion, which was received with great applause, the Rev. George 
W. Bethune, D. D., addressed the President as folloAvs : 

Mr. President : — I shrink from following, with my awkward 
sentences, the eloquent thoughts and diction to which we have been 
listening with such pleasure and advantage ; but the committee act- 
ing for the Society to-day, have just now made it my duty to ask 
through you, sir, permission to express the thanks of this assembly 
to the gentleman who has conferred so great a kindness upon us. 

It is not necessary to use language for the purpose of telling hira 
our appreciation of his address. The rapt attention with which it 
has been heard during the hours of its delivery, has testified our 
sense of its excellence, and I should err in doing more than to move 
a vote of thanks to our orator. 

Yet, Mr. President, I cannot forget the most pleasing fact, that, 
however ambitious we may have been to secure one, who, on the 
present occasion, would do us honor, and give us profit by his emi- 
nent qualifications, we did not need to go beyond the limits of our 
own city, or the list of our own members, to find an orator in him, 
whose magnificent genius has illustrated the annals of our country, 
and has now taught us how we may act worthily of its citizenship ; 
for when that gentleman returned from representing with e(|ual dig- 
nity and diplomatic skill the interests of our government at the first 



44 

court in Europe, and not only our government but the educated 
American mind in its highest accomplishment, he chose our beloved 
New York as his place of residence, giving to our social circles the 
welcome presence of a cultivated gentleman, to many of us, a plea- 
sant friend, and to our Society, a faithful collaborator. 

With these few words. I have the honor to move you. sir, that 
the thanks of the Society, and of this audience, be presented to the 
Hon. Mr. Bancroft for his address. 

The resolution was seconded by the Hon. William W. 
Campbell, and unanimously adopted. 

The exercises at the Saloon were concluded by a benedic- 
tion, pronounced by the Rev. Dr. Adams. 

The Society, with their guests, then proceeded to the Astor 
House, where an entertainment had been prepared for them by 
Messrs. Coleman and Stetson. At six o'clock. Dr. De Witt 
having asked a blessing, the company sat down to dinner, which 
was admirably served. The cloth having been removed, Rev. 
Dr. Mathews returned thanks, and the President introduced 
the first regular toast, with the following remarks : 

To the members and friends of the New York Historical Society, 
this its first semi-centennial anniversary is one of great interest. In 
looking back, through the intervening half century, to the origin of 
the Society, to the early difficulties it had to encounter, and to its 
progress through those difficulties to its present condition of high 
prosperity, we find abundant reasons for congratulation and en- 
couragement. In looking forward, from this advanced point of pre- 
sent achievement, to the Future, the horizon of our field of labor 
becomes enlarged before us, our responsibility increases with our pro- 
gress, and admonishes us that past success should only serve to stim- 
ulate future effort ; and that the practical motto of the Society 
should ever be " to consider nothing as done, while any thing yet re- 
mains to be done." 

With these preliminary remarks, I have now to propose our first 
regular toast : 

1. The 20th November, 1804— the birth-day of the New York Historical 
Society ; rich in its memories of the Past, and in its hopes of the Future, may- 
each return of this Anniversary find the Society more abounding in its means, 
more active in its operations, and more extended in its usefulness. 

This toast having been received with all the honors, the 
President rose and said : 



45 

On an occasion like the present, it is eminently fitting and pro- 
per that we should not be unmindful of those to whose enlightened 
wisdom, public spirit, and personal eiforts we are indebted for the 
origin, the progress, and the present prosperity of this Society. 
Among these are the names of Egbert Benson, Brockholst Living- 
ston, De Witt Clinton, Samuel Miller, Samuel L. Mitchell, David 
Hosack, John M. Mason, Charles Wilkes, John Pintard, Peter A. Jay, 
James Kent, Peter G. Stuyvesant, Albert Gallatin, Samuel Jones, 
Philip Hone, James G. King, Jonathan M. Wainwright, James 
Lenox, and other names that not only adorn the annals of this 
Society, but many of which are high and brilliant on the Records of 
the History of our State and Country. 

I, therefore, ask you to unite with me in honoring our second re- 
gular toast : 

2. The memory of the Founders and Benefactors of the Society. 

A call for Dr. John W. Francis being loudly made, he 
was received with much enthusiasm. He said : 

I wish, Mr. President you had summoned some one more com- 
petent than myself. You will at once perceive that I labor under 
considerable embarrassment, owing to difficulty of speech caused by 
a severe cold caught a few evenings ago and not properly attended to. 
Besides, sir, I do not see how it is possible to gather confidence enough 
for the evening, surrounded as I am with so much loveliness at this 
end of the room, and so much talent throughout the entire hall. 
I am, sir, within an atmosphere of intellect. You have had to-day a 
blaze of it. You have seen the force of it. You have witnessed 
its incantation, and you know how wonderfully magnificent its influ- 
ence has been. How then can a farthing rush-light display any de- 
monstration on this occasion ? Your toast is one of most copious 
extent. You have demanded of me that I should say something re- 
lative to the commencement of the Society. I hardly know in what 
manner to take it up : " The Founders and Benefactors of the New 
York Historical Society." Were I to descant vipon but a few of 
them it would take all night. However, with great deference to the 
Society and this large assemblage here this evening, I will make a 
few passing remarks upon some individuals. 

No man who lives in New York — no man who has resided in this 
city within the last twenty, thirty, forty, or fifty years, who has heard 
of the Historical Society, can for one moment doubt that John 
Pintard was its founder. — John Pintard was a descendant of that 



46 

noble army of Huguenots who fled to this country upon the revoca- 
tion of the edict of Nantz. He was a native of the city of New 
York and born May 18,. 1759. He studied the elements of general 
and classical education with the learned Cutting on Long Island ; 
and afterwards entered Princeton College. His acquisitions were 
commanding ; and at this early period of his life he studied public 
men and public measures ; enjoyed the society of the patriotic presi- 
dent of the college, Dr. Witherspoon; read the letters of Junius in 
the public papers of the day, and formed a wide circle of learned 
and distinguished friends. Upon the Declaration of Independence 
being announced, he left his classical retreat ; and his relative, Elias 
Boudinot, being appointed Commissary for American prisoners, 
Pintard was selected for his Secretary. To his range of elegant 
literature he added some knowledge of the law, and after the tri- 
umphs of the revolutionary struggle had been secured, we find him 
in close employment in the memorable scrip afl"airs of 1792-93, &c. His 
interests in these matters proving disastrous, he became a prominent 
editor in the old Daily Advertiser for several years. He was a rigid 
Washingtonian in his politics. Resigning his station as editor, we 
find him at New Orleans, where he examined so minutely the con- 
dition of things, that shortly after his return to his native place he 
published, in 1804, a topographical and medical review of that metro- 
polis. Again settled in this city, he seems to have been indus- 
triously and worthily employed in enjoining upon the counsellors 
of the Municipal Government, the importance of statistical records 
of Births and Deaths, which was finally adopted by the authorities, 
and we now possess a series of documentary Reports on that subject, 
faithfully preserved from 1800, up to the present time. He was ap- 
pointed the First City Inspector in 1804. But I dare not dwell 
upon the numerous civic services he rendered this city during his 
long and industrious life. The First Bank of Savings originated 
with him. He was conspicuous in the formation of the American 
Bible Society : he was a main spring in the organization of the 
Theological Seminary of the Protestant Episcopal Church : he gave 
impetus to the revival of the Chamber of Commerce. While a mem- 
ber of our City Corporation and of our State Legislature, so early as 
1791-2, when the latter body held its sessions in this city, we find 
him projecting measures for the improvement of the public aflfairs of 
his native place and for incorporating the Bank of New York, the 
earliest bank in the State. But I have elsewhere already specified 
most of his useful undertakings of which our people now reap the 
benefit. 



47 

John Pintard was a man of extensive historical, geographical; 
and above all, didactic information. I hardly speak within the charge 
of exaggeration, when I aflSrm that he knew nearly all Dr. Johnson's 
writings by heart. You could scarcely approach him without having 
something of Dr. Johnson's thrust on you. He was versed in 
theological and polemical divinity — Stillingfleet was his idol ; of 
South he was a great admirer, and in the progress of Church affairs 
among us, he was ever a devoted disciple. He had read with the dili- 
gence of a student our historical annals, and in particular our early 
State history, our Indian and French wai'S, the story of the Revolu- 
tionary contest ; the history of the Iroquois, and the confederated 
Six Nations. He dwelt like Clinton upon that wonderful orator. Red 
Jacket, and to all these acquisitions he added much knowledge of the 
glories and resources of the Empire State. Like Cadwallader 
D. Cold en, John Pintard proved an efficient auxiliary in furtherance 
of the Canal policy of his illustrious and most intimate friend, De Witt 
Clinton. The first meeting of our citizens in recommendation of this 
vast measure was brought together through his instrumentality, at a 
time when to give it any countenance whatever was sure to bring upon 
the advocate of the ruinous measure the anathemas of certain of the 
political leaders of those days, and official proscription. I remember 
well how cautiously and how secretly many of those incipient meet- 
ings in favor of the contemplated project were convened ; and how 
the manly bosom of Clinton often throbbed at the agonizing remarks 
the opposition muttered in his hearing, and the hazard to his j^er- 
sonal security which he sometimes encountered. But Pintard, like 
Clinton, lived to witness the crowning glory of the vast undertak- 
ing, and they enjoyed the triumph to their hearts' content at the' 
great celebration in 1824, when the union of the waters of Lake Erie 
with the Atlantic Ocean was consummated. In the full fruition of 
the Christian hope, he died June 21st, 1844, in the eighty-sixth year 
of his age. 

When we consider the disasters of his early life in business, 
by which he lost his patrimony ; the incessant toil he bestowed 
to enable him to support and rear up a large family ; his efforts in 
public calamities and distress, and in periods of pestilence ; his indi- 
vidual benefactions to the poor and needy ; his generous support to 
literature. — we are justified in pronouncing him a noble specimen of 
the patriotic and the humane. On a particular occasion, an unfortu- 
nate man, who had suff'ered the trials of the Jersey prison-ship, ad- 
dressed, in the presence of Pintard, an affluent individual, for some 
trifling relief, which was declined : the petitioner turned to Pintard 



48 

with like accents, and found succor. " "Where do you find authority 
in Scripture to give alms in your situation?" asked Croesus of Pin- 
tard. " Our people, sir," rejoined Pintard, " know not what Ameri- 
can liberty has cost : The example of the Centurion justifies me : 
' Thy prayers and thy alms have come up for a memorial before Grod.' " 
The formalist was silenced. He often said to his intimate and con- 
stant friend, George B. Rapelye, " I shall die my own executor." 

There were periods in his life in which he gave every unappro- 
priated moment to philological inquiry, and it was curious to see him 
ransacking his formidable pile of dictionaries for radicals and syno- 
nymes with an earnestness that would have done honor to the most 
eminent student in the republic of letters. He could tolerate no in- 
vasion of his idol, Dr. Johnson. Amidst his most pressing necessi- 
ties, even in advanced life, his mental energies suffered no detriment ; 
he took a lively interest in affairs, and was exempt from that indif- 
ference and sluggishness of mind which too often weigh down the 
faculties of the aged devoid of intellectual culture. There is a 
great deal of good picking in the world, he would say, but it is hard 
to get hold of it. Literary curiosity was the refreshment of his old 
age : but every physician knows the fact, that in most instances intel- 
lectual food is the material to mitigate our sufferings in the decrepit 
years of life. Books, said the benevolent Pintard, give me a downy 
pillow. 

But I must revert to the Historical Society. Pintard was well 
acquainted with the valuable labors of the Massachusetts Historical 
Society. He knew well that New York was equally rich in mate- 
rials for the services of a similar institution here. He hardly ques- 
tioned that her patriotism was less than that of that glorious State. 
He accordingly, after consultation with several of our prominent in- 
dividuals, recommended the first regular meeting on the 20th of No- 
vember, 1804. at the old City Hall, in Wall street, and in that room 
where Washington had been inaugurated the first President of the 
United States. Egbert Benson, De Witt Clinton, John M. 3Iason, 
William Linn, Samuel Miller, David Hosack, John N. Abeel, Samuel 
Bayard, Peter G. Stuyvesant, Anthony Bleecker, and John Pintard 
constituted the first meeting. A committee from those present, con- 
sisting of Benson, Miller, and Pintard, was appointed to draft a con- 
stitution ; and the meeting adjourned to meet again on the evening 
of the 10th of December. At their adjourned meeting the constitu- 
tion was adopted, and the first meeting convened under it was held 
on the 14th of January, 1805, when Egbert Benson was elected 
President, and John Pintard, Recording Secretary. 



49 

It can readily be perceived that the Society at its very first in- 
ception, could boast of strong men : individuals who had already in 
their course of life manifested enlightened views, a patriotic spirit, a 
true love of civic distinction, and talents of superior and efficient 
excellence ; who had studied the annals of their country's struggles, 
her war of independence, the constitution ; and who were alive to 
the fact that the preservation of contemporary records was the data 
from which future history was to receive its true impress. The 
dreadful perversions of facts and opinions about that particular 
period when the Society was organized, amidst a great political 
revolution in the general government and in man}' of the States of 
the Union, acted as an additional stimulus to hasten the work of 
conservatism by fidelity in historical research grounded on docu- 
mentary testimony. Moreover, many of the great minds who had 
shed their lustre over our annals were either resident among our in- 
habitants, or engaged in good works in other sections of the Republic' 
Their very presence admonished the association of the triumphs to 
be secured by working in the patriotic cause while so many of the 
actors in our great events were yet among us. Benson was enriched 
with constitutional laurels, and had distinguished himself in State 
legislation and in Congress and on the Bench. His integrity was a 
proverb. He was, moreover, well impregnated with Indian antiquities, 
Indian names, and a knowledge of the early Dutch occurrences of New 
York. Benson was a native of this city — educated in King's, now 
Columbia College, and died, in 1833, aged 87 years. His historical 
Memoir is not to be overlooked by the curious in antiquarian research. 
Of Clinton, I need only say, that he held for several years the office of 
President of the Society, that through his whole life he was devoted 
to its interests, and added to his own and the Society's renown, by his 
admirable discourses. John M. Mason was distinguished for his noble 
and fearless bearing, his erudition, his polemical and pulpit writings, 
and his marvellous eloquence. It may justly be admitted that he 
was the greatest pulpit orator of his time. Vigor of thought, energy 
ef diction, were his greatest characteristics. He temporized with no 
errors, if he deemed them such, and his aphoristic diction left a last- 
ing impression on every hearer. In controversy he seems to have 
adopted Priestley's rule, " a fair field, and no quarter." The warmth 
of his temperament animated all his discourses ; lethargy or indif- 
ference found no repose within the sound of his voice, and the mul- 
titudes which crowded to hear him was proof of the popularity of his 
impressive utterance and the force of the mighty truths he promul- 
4 



50 

gated. To borrow the language of Grattan, when speaking of Dean 
Kirwan, " He came to interrupt the repose of the pulpit, and shake 
one world with the thunder of the other : the preacher's desk 
became the throne of light." As no obstacles intimidated him, 
he was ever ready for every good work. I know that his heart was 
filled with tenderness ; that his friendship was most tenacious ; and 
when you heard him speak in laudation of individuals, you were con- 
scious that it was a heartfelt eulogy. The ardent theological discus- 
sions in which he so often engaged, and the stern attitude he habit- 
ually maintained in regard to popular errors, caused him to be gene- 
rally considered a man of great hardihood and little susceptibility ; 
but, whoever beheld his eyes (as I have done) fill with tears at the 
mention of Robert Hall's eloquent services and useful career, would 
realize that the strength of his understanding was equalled by the 
tenderness of his heart. "We have a beautiful example of his char- 
acter in his ministrations at the death-bed of the lamented Hamil- 
ton, whose last hours were thus solaced by the Christian sympathy 
of a brave and devoted soldier of the cross. 

William Linn was an eminent divine of the Dutch Reformed 
Church, of great pulpit eloquence ; rich in American feelings, well 
laden with historical materials, patriotic in his sentiments, con- 
servative in his principles ; and, so far as his professional duties 
allowed him, gave an impulse to the Society. Of Samuel Miller I 
might speak at some length. He was a scholar of fair pretensions. 
His Americanism was indubitable. His leading trait was benignity, 
and it was no figure of speech which distinguished him from his 
brother, as the divine Miller ; for such he was in character not less 
than in profession. Intellectually his mind was historical in ten- 
dency ; his eloquence was singularly persuasive, and his literary ac- 
quisitions extensive. His " Brief Retrospect of the Eighteenth Cen- 
tury " marks an era in our literature, and it was justly observed by 
a British critic, that by this work he had deserved the praises of 
both hemispheres. So deeply were his sympathies engaged in the 
objects of this Society, that he contemplated a history of the State of 
New York, and had collected materials of some extent for that pur- 
pose. The records of our Society, and its printed volumes, evince 
the zeal, ability and devotedness of David Hosack in the promotion 
of our great design. This eminent physician, professor, and medical 
writer, whose long professional career has identified his name with 
most of the great public institutions of our metropolis, literary and 
humane, gave much of his time and talents in aid of the great pur- 



51 

poses of our incorporation. He justly deemed our association of 
high value, and bis devotion to its interests in the darkest period of 
its history, is proof of the feelings he cherished in its behalf. 

Another valuable recruit to our primitive corps from the ranks of 
the church was John N. Abeel, whose high character and large at- 
tainments I'endered him an important auxiliary. He was also the 
representative of Dutch feelings, and his name is identified with our 
colonial history. The first meeting was also favored on that occa- 
sion by the presence of a gentleman of public spirit and benevolence 
from New Jersey, Samuel Bayard, already known as the promoter 
of the interests of learning in that State. Most appropriately also 
was the Society's inauguration assisted by a descendant of one of the 
patriarchs of New Amsterdam, Peter Gt. Stuyvesant, whose bene- 
factions and character aid in the perpetuation of his ancestor's fame. 

Let me detain you with one other name, Anthony Bleecker, a 
name familiar to New York for many generations. He was edu- 
cated for the bar, but like many law-students, with the instinct for 
belles-lettres strongly developed, gave his time chiefly to literature. 
His taste and a benevolent heart made him a favorite coadjutor in 
this enterprise. He courted the muses with no inconsiderable success. 
and was a frequent contributor to the earliest literary journals pub- 
lished in this city. He compiled Captain Riley's narrative, a work 
in its days, of great popularity, and gave him, I believe, the entire 
benefit of that publication. Bleecker was of the kindest nature, and 
remarkable for a generous sympathy for literary merit. Few indivi- 
duals among us ever equalled him in a devotion to the interests and 
character of New York. In the vigor of his mental powers he died 
of a disease of the heart. 

I have already stated that at the adjourned session held on the 
10th of Dec, 1804, a constitution was adopted. On consulting the 
records of the Society, it is ascertained that additional persons at- 
tended this important meeting ; whose names of great renown add 
honor to the organization of the association. Now we find Rufus 
King, Daniel D. Tompkins, and John Henry Hobart, among 
these individuals of whom it were superfluous at this time to utter 
more than their names : also John Bowdkn, William Harris, John 
Kemp, Peter Wilson, John C. Kunze, all then or subsequently of 
the Faculty of Columbia College, attesting that that venerable seat 
of learning sent a powerful deputation for the promotion of the 
Society. Dr. McVickar, the accoinplislicd Professor of Belles-Lettres, 
has given us a beautiful tribute to the memory of Bowdeu, which 



52 

every graduate of the College recognizes as justly due his character. 
Harris was a classical scholar of rare proficiency, versed in eccle- 
siastical history, and who afterwards held for many years the ojKce 
of President of Columbia College. Kemp, who died at the early age 
of fifty years, in New York in 1812, was by birth a Scotchman, and 
is still well remembered by many surviving graduates of Columbia 
College as an eminent professor in that institution of Mathematics, 
Natural Philosophy, Geography and History. His countenance gave 
aid to the Society ; Professor Kenwick has furnished a short memoir 
of his life in the American Modical and Philosophical Register. 
Wilson, long a Professor of the Latin and Greek Languages, bad 
much other knowledge to render him an acceptable co-operator. He 
was notable as a linguist and verbal writer. Dr. William Duer has not 
forgotten him in his valuable discourse before the St. Nicholas Society. 
KuNZE was among the most learned divines and oriental scholars of 
the day ; his reading embraced a wide scope of knowledge, and 
he was something of a proficient in his acquaintance with the Legal 
Medicine of Paulus Zachias : but he perhaps will hereafter be most 
distinctly recognized as the Preceptor of the amiable and accom- 
plished Dr. Stuber, the author of the continuation of the Life of 
Franklin. We may also notice John Murhay, Jun., of the Society 
of Friends ; a clever man, a lover of the arts, a philanthropist, and 
an early and ardent promoter of our Free-School system ; and Archi- 
bald Bruce the first (chronologically speaking) professor of Miner- 
alogy in this country, and the Editor of the American Mineralogical 
Journal. In Thacher's Medical Biography, I have written of him at 
greater length. 

These facts may be of some interest as referring to the early 
history of the New York Historical Society ; they are related from 
personal knowledge, although my connection with the Society dates 
from Miller's masterly discourse in 1809, to which I had the honor 
and pleasure of listening. I have but briefly indicated as the occa- 
sion alone permits the prominent traits of the small band who first 
gathered to form the Society. They are no more : but their work 
survives, and we gratefully recall their virtues to-night. You will 
perceive that though few in number, our founders included a rare 
amount of influence, such as is derived from practical skill in aft'airs, 
an enthusiasm for knowledge, high literary attainments, and a patriotic 
spirit. — You will easily summon to recollection the many eminent 
men who have subsequently given dignity and interest to our asso- 
ciation, and a task more pleasing or grateful could not be undertakea 



53 

than a fair record of their character and career did the hour and the 
occasion tolerate the measure. 

3. The President of the United States. 

4. The Governor of the State of Xew-York. 

The President, on introducing the fifth toast, said : — 

In asking your attention to the subject of our next toast. I take 
the occasion to state an historical fact of great interest not only to 
the City of New York, but to the cause of History. It is a fact 
much less generally known than, from its general interest, it ought 
to be. 

It is doubtless well known to many of you, that the history of 
the Municipal Government of this city, from its first organization 
under the Burgomasters and Schepens, down to the year 1831, com- 
prising a period of near two hundred years, and embracing important 
changes in the Government of the city, the State, and the nation — 
this history exists only in a single manuscript copy, exposed to 
destruction by fire, or other accident. This manuscript destroyed, 
and two centuries of the History of our Municipal Government 
would become for ever extinct. It would leave behind it no fragments 
from which that history could be reconstructed. The loss would be 
entire and irreparable. That the copies of this manuscript history 
should be, in some way, multiplied, and so disposed of, as to afford a 
reasonable assurance of their preservation, and the perpetuity of the 
history, will be readily conceded by all ; and I trust that it may not 
be unreasonable to hope that a subject of so much interest to tlie City 
of New York, and to the truth of History, may receive the early and 
effectual attention of our City Government. 

With these remarks I propose to you our fifth regular toast : — 

5. The Mayor and Municipal GovernineTit of the City of New York: in the 
faithful discharge of their high office, they are tlie guardians of its History, as 
well as of its character and its welfare. 

6. The Army and Navy of the United States : each in its turn, has contri- 
buted to the History of our country some of its brightest pages. 

lion. Frederick P. Stanton, of Tennessee, being called 
upon, responded as follows : — 

Gkntlemen: — I could not have anticipated the absarce of that 
illustrious citizen of your State, the senior officer of the army of the 
United States, who was expected to be present and respond to the 
sentiment just announced. Still less could I have presumed upon 



54 

being myself honored with the invitation to respond for the array, in 
the ph\ce of that accomplished and gallant soldier. It is to no merit 
of my own, and to no personal fitness for the position and the task 
assigned me, that I can ascribe the compliment implied in your call : 
it must be only because, upon this interesting occasion, I represent a 
State whose sons have done something on the field of battle, for the 
glory of American arms, for the preservation of liberty, and for the 
inspiration of historic genius. 

If, in this unpremeditated attempt to return the acknowledg- 
ments of the army for the generous sentiment which has just been 
received with so much enthusiasm, I could, for the time being, so far 
elevate myself as to assume the sentiments and feelings which always 
animate that noble band, I should certainly feel bound to exhibit a 
becoming modesty in speaking of its glorious deeds. And when I 
observe the presence in which I stand — the striking array of eminent 
ability, and established reputation by which I am surrounded ; when 
I reflect that you, like myself, must be impatient for that " feast of 
reason " which we are soon to enjoy ; and, especially, when I know 
that the navy, kindred in glory and fitly sharing the honor of the 
sentiment announced, is present to answer in the person of one of 
its most gallant sons — I feel how appropriate it is for me to say only, in 
the name of the army, that its privilege is to act, and not to speak — 
to execute, and not to record its own deeds. It presents to you some 
of the most important materials of history. Take them : make of 
them what you can. In your labors the army must ever feel the 
most intense interest ; for it is history, alone, which can erect the 
monument, "jere perennius," to which the soldier looks as the 
highest and noblest reward of his labors and sacrifices in the service 
of his country. 

On the other hand, if for myself and in my own personal cha- 
racter, I should feel at liberty to say any thing of the splendid 
achievements of American arms, scattered as they are on this con- 
tinent from Bunker Hill to Saratoga and Yorktown, and from New 
Orleans to Buena Vista, Vera Cruz, and Mexico, it would now be no 
more than this : that if American historians shall prove equal to their 
glorious theme, and shall worthily record the deeds of the United 
States army, they will indeed present to the world, and bequeathe to 
posterity, the highest possible evidence of their own inspired genius. 

Com, J. McKkever, in a brief speech, acknowledged the 
honor conferred upon that branch of the public service to which 
he belonged, and expressed the hope that the actiojis of the 



55 

Navy miglit always speak more eloquently in its behalf, than 
he possibly could, on that, or any other occasion. 

7. The Commanding General of the Army of the United States : whose or- 
ders before the battle, have proved to be a true history of the fight. 

This toast was received with great enthusiasm, and a note 
from General Scott was read, which will be found among the 
correspondence reported by the committee. 

The President then gave as the eighth regular toast : — 

8. The Orator of the day : in writing the history of his country, he has per- 
petuated his own. 

Mr. Bancroft rose, and replied as follows : — 

Having taken up so much of your time this morning, I have now 
no right to hold you long ; but my heart leaps to my lips to respond 
to the cordial manner in which you receive me. The traveller who 
leaves New York, sees no day so happy as the day of his return. I 
have every reason to be grateful, that I selected New York for my 
home ; for where are the greetings of friendship more hearty ? 
Where are good influences more ready to quicken well-devised de- 
signs and stimulate honorable action ? Where do the very eager- 
ness and multiplied variety of activity better encourage by healthful 
contrast the quiet occupations of the scholar? The spirit of univer- 
sal toleration pervades the city, which is most intimately connected 
with all parts of the world, and is, as it were, the representative of 
all times and nations. Nature, too, has lavished around us her ut- 
most magnificence ; where the Niagara connects our inland seas, or 
the Genesee cleaves its way down the mountain-ranges ; or where 
Lake George reposes among our Highlands, or the Hudson crowns 
its banks with all that is beautiful in scenery, and all that is lovely 
and generous and refined in hospitality. If, as students of History, 
we look back upon the past, this commonwealth traces its rise to the 
home of modern commerce, industry, and enterprise ; to the chosen 
asylum of the science and liberal culture which the Reformation fos- 
tered. If we call to mind the deeds that distinguish our own soil, 
faithful history records, how in the revolutionary struggle, this State, 
jn proportion to its numbers, signalized itself by its contributions of 
its men and of its substance to the common cause. Of all the mem- 
bers of the Union, it had the largest frontier exposed to the desola- 
tions of savage inroads ; and all the way from the shore of Cham- 



56 

plain to the cabins on the Susquehanna, its sons poured out their 
blood like water for the sake of freedom and their country. Here 
were the outposts, over whose inhabitants sorrows thickened like the 
cloud and burst like the tempest, and here is the battlefield of Sara- 
toga, where victory gave Independence its perfect guarantee. But 
it is not chiefly on these accounts that the State of New York has 
gained its high position in the career of humanity. She is emphati- 
cally the foster-parent of Union. The idea of a Federal Union came 
with the first emigrants from Holland, and ever remained the warm 
impulse and hope of all their descendants. It was natural for them 
to desire independence. The Hollander, when once the connection 
with his own mother country was dissolved, panted for a freer and 
more prosperous republic than even that of his progenitors, and saw 
clearly that such a republic could exist in strength, and in varied 
and expanding culture, only as a cluster of States. Here, therefore, 
under the influence of geographical position and hereditary wi.«dom, 
the first Congress was held in the heart of the Dutch population of 
New York. Here in this city, Franklin, the great advocate of union, 
was welcomed with unbounded joy, as he came down our river to re- 
port the auspicious plan of a federation. The Constitution of the 
United States was founded on reason ; and made its way to success 
by appeals to reason ; and the prevailing appeal was made through 
the press of New York, especially by its own Jay and Hamilton. 
Here, too, the great Washington — he, who not only stands foremost 
in the afi"ections of his country, but lives throughout the world as 
the representative name of all that is most disinterested and most 
sincere, inaugurated our Republic, at the very moment when Europe 
was rocking with the convulsions of revolution, and France was just 
entering on that course of change which has not yet terminated. I 
will not off"er as a sentiment that our prosperity should be estab- 
lished on a rock ; for geologists tell us that rocks are of compara- 
tively modern origin, and are constantly undergoing the process of 
decay ; I look for a fit image, to something more enduring, and ask 
leave to propose : 

Our Union : may it last as long as the empire of love and reason. 

The President then proceeded to welcome the delegates from 
the various kindred Societies who were present on the occasion, 
oflering them all the right hand of fellowship, and concluding 
with the following toast : — 

9. Om- Sister Socioties: co-laboi"ers with us in the cause of historical truth; 
we welcome them cordially on this occasion. 



57 

The Hon. Robert C. Winthrop, of Massachusetts, as a 
representative of the oldest Historical Society in the Union, was 
first called upon to respond to this toast, and his rising was 
greeted with applause, which indicated what expectations of his 
eloquence were entertained. He said : — 

I need not assure you, Mr. President, that I am deeply sensible 
to this kind notice and this cordial reception. It is with real plea- 
sure that I have found myself able, — somewhat unexpectedly at the 
last moment, — to be present on this occasion, to participate in these 
anniversary festivities as one of your invited guests, and to listen to 
the comprehensive and powerful discourse of one, in whose fame 
Massachusetts can claim at least an equal share with New York, 
and who has just presented so brilliant a title to be recognized 
afresh as the historian of the whole country. 

I feel myself greatly honored, too. in being commissioned as one 
of the delegates of the Historical Society of Massachusetts, to bear 
her birthday greetings and congratulations to her sister Society of 
New York. Your elder sister by a few years, as she is, and by right 
of seniority the very head of the whole family of American historical 
associations — she rejoices in every evidence of your superior advan- 
tages and ampler resources, and I should do great injustice to those 
who have sent me, as well as to those by whom I am accompanied, if 
I did not assure you of the sincere and earnest interest which we all 
take in the signal manifestation of your prosperity and progress 
which this occasion has afforded. If I may be pardoned for borrow- 
ing an expressive orientalism, and for playing upon it for an instant 
after I have borrowed it, I would venture to wish that your associa- 
tion might not only flourish like the chosen palm-tree of the plain, 
but that it might never fail to furnish, to all who repose beneath its 
shade, an abundant supply of dates. For, sir, much as we may sen- 
timentaliae about the historic muse, some of my friends at this end 
of the tabic, who have courted her ladyship most successfully, will 
bear witness that she does not feed upon air, but that, on the con- 
trary, she has a voracious appetite for precisely this variety of fruit, 
and cannot live without it— hard and dry and husky, as it is gene- 
rally considered by other people. 

Sir, the Historical Societies of the different States of the Union — 
and I am glad to remember that there are now so few States with- 
out one — are engaged in a common labor of love and loyalty in 
gathering up materials for the history of our beloved country. But 



58 

each one of them has a peculiar province of interest and of effort in 
illustrating the history of its own State. And how worthy and how 
wide a field is thus opened to the labors of your own Society ! New 
York — the truly imperial State of New York — a nation in itself — 
with a population equal to that of the whole Union in the days of our 
revolutionary struggle — great in territorial extent — surpassingly 
rich in every variety of material and of moral resources — unequalled 
in its external advantages and in its internal improvement of those 
advantages — greatest of all, perhaps, in its commercial emporium, 
by every token and by all acknowledgment entitled to the crown, as 
the Queen City of the Western Hemisphere ! What State in the 
Union is there which combines so many elements of growth and of 
grandeur ! What State, any where, has been so marked and quoted 
by nature as the abode of enterprise and the seat of empire ! 

If a stranger from abroad desires to see the beauties or the won- 
ders of American scenery, where else does he betake himself — as my 
friend, Mr. Bancroft, has just suggested — but along the charming 
banks of your Hudson, or through the exquisite passes of your Lake 
George, or up the romantic ravines of your Trenton, or over the 
lofty peaks of your Catskill, or upon the sublime and matchless 
brink of your Niagara? If he comes in search of fountains of 
health, where can he find them so salubrious and invigorating as at 
your Saratoga, or your Sharon ? If he is eager to behold the giant 
causeways of the new world — those massive chains of intercommuni- 
cation which have married together the lakes and the ocean, even 
where hills and mountains would seem to have stood ready to forbid 
the bans —or the hardly inferior triumphs of that earlier art, which 
has " rolled obedient rivers through the land ; " — where can he behold 
them on a more gigantic scale, than in your railroads and canals ? 
And, if he is curious to observe the progress which civilization and 
refinement, and wealth and luxury, and architecture and science and 
literature, have made among us, where can he witness an ampler or 
more brilliant display of them all, than in the saloons and libraries, 
in the shops and warehouses, in the stately edifices and splendid ave- 
nues of this magnificent metropolis ? 

Nor, jMr. President, is New York without the noblest monu- 
ments and the most precious memories of the past. The memorable 
scenes which have illustrated your soil, and the distinguished men 
who have been actors in those scenes, come thronging so thickly to 
one's remembrance as he reflects on your past history, that I know 
not how to discriminate or what to touch upon. Why, sir, we have 



59 

a few things to be proud of, in this way, in our own old Massachu- 
setts. Notwithstanding the disparagement which your ehjquent ora- 
tor has jast thrown upon rocks in general, as of modern origin, I 
think I may say that we have a Rock which no one will disparage, 
■ which has been trodden by the noblest company of men and women 
that ever braved the perils of a wintry sea, or stemmed the currents 
of an adverse fortune. We have a Hall, too, which has echoed to as 
noble voices as ever pleaded the cause of human rights. We have a 
Hill, also, and a Plain, not unknown to fame — represented at this ta- 
ble, I am glad to say, by one of my excellent colleagues (Rev. Geo. 
E. Ellis) — where the first blood for independence was poured out 
like water from some of the purest veins of our land. We have 
names, too, both in our later and our earlier history, which we would 
not willingly admit to be second to any which can be found on the 
historic roll. But no inordinate appreciation of our own treasures 
has rendered us insensible, I trust, to the proud associations and 
memories which are the priceless inheritance of our sister States. 
We rejoice to remember that they all have something to be proud of 
— some principle which they were first in asserting, some idea which 
they were foremost in advancing, some proposal which they were 
earliest in advocating, some great American event of which their 
soil was the chosen scene, some great American character to which 
their institutions gave birth. 

Yes, sir, each one of the old Thirteen at least, — and not a few of 
the new Eighteen, also, — can point this day to some one or more of 
the memorable names or deeds or associations of our history, and 
say : '■ This is our own — this is our contribution to the glories of 
America — this institution was the work of our fathers, or this soul 
was ripened beneath our sky." Virginia, the mother of us all, with 
her Jamestown and her Yorktown, the Alpha and the Omega, the 
small beginning and the glorious close, of our colonial career. — and 
with her transcendent and incomparable Washirf^ton, — I wish 1 
could find a title worthy of that name ; — Rhode Island and Maryland, 
with their Roger Williams and their Calverts, contending nobly to- 
gether for the earliest assertion of I'eligious toleration ; — Connecti- 
cut, with her Charter Oak : — Pennsylvania, with her pure-hearted 
and philanthropic old Broad-brim Proprietor, and with her Hall of 
Independence, and her grave of Franklin ; — New Jersey, with her 
Trenton and Morristown ; — North Carolina, with her Mecklenburg 
and her Nathaniel Macon ; — South Carolina, with her high-souled 
Huguenots, and her Marions and Sumpters ; — Georgia, with her be- 



60 

nevolent and cliivalrous Oglethorpe : — Why, sir, one might run over 
the whole catalogue of the States, even to the youngest and latest of 
them, without finding one that is not associated with some name, 
some story, some event, of a nature not merely to quicken the pulse 
and gratify the pride of her own people, but to attract the syni])athy 
and kindle the patriotism of every true-hearted American citizen. 
These stars of our political system, sir, like those of the firmament 
above us, difi'er indeed from one another, but only in glory. 

"Facies non omnibus iina, 
Nee diversa tamen ; qualem decet esse sorovum." 

But second to no one of them, certainly, in all that constitutes 
the interest and the pride of history, stands New York — with her 
gallant English explorer, Henry Hudson, whose fate was even sad- 
der than that of the lamented navigator of the same land, whom your 
own Grinnell has so nobly, but alas ! so vainly, sought to succor ;— 
with her sturdy old Dutch settlers and Dutch governors, whose vir- 
tues and valor, as well as their peculiarities and oddities, have been 
immortalized by your own delightful Irving ; — and with her later 
heroes and patriots, of civil and of military renown, her Livingstons 
and Clintons, her Philip Schuyler and Alexander Hamilton, her 
Kents and Gallatins, her John Jay and Rufus King — if, indeed, 
Massachusetts can allow you to appropriate the fame of Rufus King. 
We need not quarrel, however, about that, sir — for his fame is wide 
enough for us both. May his memory ever be a bond of friendship 
and love between us ! And if it ever fails to be, I doubt not that 
Maine, which furnished his birth-place, will be quite ready to step in 
and settle the diiference. 

Who can forget, too, that it was upon your soil, at Albany, just 
a hundred years ago, that Benjamin Franklin submitted the first 
formal proposition for a union of the colonies ? Who can forget 
that it was upon your soil, at Saratoga, that the first decisive victory 
over the British forces was achieved, — that victory which gave the 
earliest emphatic assurance to the world, that the liberties of Ameri- 
ca would, in the end, be triumphantly vindicated? Or, who can 
forget, that it was upon your own soil, in this very city, that the 
Constitution of the United States — the grand consummation of all 
the toils, and trials, and sacrifices, 4ind sufferings of patriots and pil- 
grims alike, — was first organized ; — and that the very air we breathe 
has vibrated to the voice of Washington, as he repeated the oath to 



61 

support that Constitution from tlie lips of your own Cbaneellor Liv- 
ingston ? 

No wonder, sir, that your Society is so eagerly and intently en- 
gaged in illustrating the history of your own State, when you have 
such a history, so noble and so varied, to illustrate. 

But, Mr. President, let me not draw to a close without remark- 
ing, that none of us should be unmindful that there is another work 
going on, in this our day and generation, beside that of writing the 
history of our fathers, — and that is, the acting of our own history. 
We cannot live, sir, upon the glories of the past. Historic memo- 
ries, however precious or however inspiring, will not sustain our in- 
stitutions or preserve our liberties. 

There is a future history to be composed, to which every State, 
and every citizen of every State, at this hour, and at every hour, is 
contributing materials. And the generous rivalry of our societies, 
and of their respective States, as to which shall furnish the most 
brilliant record of the past, must not be permitted to render us re- 
gardless of a yet nobler rivalry, in which it becomes us all even 
more ardently and more ambitiously to engage. 

I know not of a grander spectacle which the world could furnish, 
than that of the multiplied States of t])is mighty Union contending 
with each other, in a friendly and fraternal competition, which 
should add the brightest page to the future history of our common 
country, which should perform the most signal acts of philanthropy 
or patriotism, which should exhibit the best example of free institu- 
tions well and wisely administered, which should present to the imi- 
tation of mankind the purest and most perfect picture of well-regu- 
lated liberty, which should furnish the most complete illustration of 
the success of that great Republican Experiment, of which our land 
has been providentially selected as the stage. 

Ah, sir, if the one-and-thirty proud Commonwealths which are 
now ranged beneath a single banner, from ocean to ocean, could be 
roused up to such an emulation as this, — if instead of being seen 
striving for some miserable political mastery, or some selfish, sec- 
tional ascendency, — if instead of nourishing and cherishing a spirit 
of mutual jealousy and hate, while struggling to aggrandize them- 
selves, whether territorially or commercially, at each other's expense, 
or to each other's injury, — if they could be seen laboring always, 
side by side, to improve their own condition and character, to elevate 
their own standard of purity and virtue, to abolish their own abuses, 
to reform their own institutions, peculiar or otherwise, and to show 



63 

forth within themselves the best fruits of civilization, Christianity 
and freedom, — what a history would there be to be written hereafter 
for the instruction and encouragement of mankind ! Who would 
not envy the writer whose privilege it should be to set forth such a 
record ? 

Surely, sir, he would realize something of the inspiration of the 
Psalmist : " His heart would be inditing a good matter, and his 
tongue would be the pen of a ready writer." It would be no subject 
for any cold and sneering skeptic, however glowing his style, or pol- 
ished his periods. No Gibbon could tell the story of such a rise and 
progress. Such a mind may deal better with "the decline and fall" 
of nations. Methinks, Mr. President, it would be a theme to in- 
spire fresh faith in him by whom it was treated, and in all by whom 
it was read, — faith in the capability of man for self-government, faith 
in human progress and in Divine providence, faith in the ultimate 
prevalence of that Gospel of Christ, which is, after all, the only sure 
instrument either of social or of political reform. 

But let us, at least, not fail to remember on such an occasion 
as this, that whatever be the history which we, in our turn, are to 
present to the world, and which we are now acting in the sight of 
men and of angels, — that whatever be the scenes which the daily 
daguerreotypes of a thousand presses are catching up and collecting 
for its materials — such a history is to be written ; — and, when writ- 
ten, it is to exert an influence upon the world, for good or for evil, 
for encouragement or for warning, such as no other uninspired his- 
tory has ever yet exerted. Yes, Mr. President, it is not too much 
to say that American history, the history of these United States, and 
the history of these separate States, is to be the fountain to man- 
kind of such a hope — or of such a despair — as they have never yet 
conceived of. 

Not for any mere glorification of men or of States ; not to magni- 
fy the importance of individuals, or to trace the antiquity of families ; 
not to gratify the vanity of monarchs, or ministers, or yet of masses, 
is our history to be written ; — but to exhibit the true and actual 
workings of the great machinery of free government, and to show how 
well, and to what results, the people are capable of managing it. 
This is to be the great lesson of our annals. This is the momentous 
problem, whose solution we are to unfold — and the world can look 
for that solution nowhere else than here. 

You liave all observed, I am sure, that the accomplished Lieu- 
tenant Maury has been gathering up the old log-books of the mer- 



63 

chant ships and whalers, and comparing them together to make wind 
charts and current charts, for rendering your ocean voyages more 
speedy and more safe. Just so will it be with the log-books of our 
great Republic, and of the lesser republics which are sailing beneath 
the same flag. From them is hereafter to be made up the great sail- 
ing Chart of Freedom, which is to point out the safe channel or the 
fatal reef to every nation which shall enter on the same great voyage 
of liberty. God grant that on no corner or margin of that chart 
may ever appear the sad record : " Here, upon this sunken ledge, or 
there upon those open breakers, or yonder, in some fatal fog, by the 
desertion of some cowardly crew, or the rashness of some reckless 
helmsman, our great New Era struck, foundered, and went to 
pieces" — to the exultation of despots, and to the perpetual conster- 
nation and despair of the lovers of freedom throughout the world. 
Let that chart rather, I pray Heaven, bear down to a thousand gene- 
rations the plain and unmistakable track of an ever smoother and 
more prosperous progress, giving hope and trust and confidence and 
assurance to all who shall launch out upon the same sea, that a safe 
and glorious voyage is before them, a safe and glorious haven within 
reach. 

Thus far, certainly, Mr. President, there has been no lack of 
speed in our own course. We are advancing rapidly enough, no 
man will deny, to no second place among the nations of the earth. 
What other country beneath the sun has ever exhibited so vast an 
extension of its territory, its population, its power, within the same 
period of its existence ? I saw an official announcement, a few days 
since, that one of the astronomei'S at our National Observatory, in 
looking at the thirteenth asteroid of that fragmentary system which 
was once thought to be composed of only four or five inferior planets, 
found suddenly a strange visitor within the field of his telescope, 
which proved to be the thirty-first asteroid of that same mysterious 
system. It was a fact not a little emblematic of our own national 
history. 

While the historic observer of America has been turning his 
glass and fixing his gaze upon our Old Thirteen, he has suddenly 
seen the system increasing and multii^lying beneath his view, until 
the thirty-first star has already appeared in the same marvellous con- 
stellation. The war with Mexico, — of which the gallant hero is your 
fellow-citizen, whose absence at this board has just been so much 
regretted, — in adding this thirty-first star to our flag, has opened to 
us the vast mineral treasures of the Pacific coast ; — and as Congress 



64 

was bestowing upon the veteran victor the cominemorative medal 
which he so well deserved, but wliich was so meagre a memorial 
of his merits, we could not but recall the noble lines of a great 
English poet — 

"In living medals see our wars enrolled, 
And vanquished realms supply recording gold! " 

But this is but of yesterday. If we would realize the rapidity of 
our country's progress, we must go a little farther back. We must 
go back to the beginning of that very half century over which the 
existence of your Society has now extended. Fifty years ago ! 
What was our country then ? — what is it now? Look on that pic- 
ture and on this ! Ohio but just admitted, with a single representa- 
tive in the national councils. Louisiana just annexed, most of it a 
bare, untenanted, unexplored wilderness. Not a steamboat on the 
Hudson, or any where else except in the brain of some scheming 
Fitch or hare-brained Fulton. Not a railroad or a telegraph 
within twenty years of being dreamed of. The cotton crop still in 
its infancy. New York hardly yet one of the great States ; for you 
will remember that Virginia and Pennsylvania and Massachusetts 
were the three great States of the revolutionary and constitutional 
periods. By the constitutional apportionment, Virginia had ten repre- 
sentatives, and Massachusetts and Pennsylvania eight each, while 
New York was allowed but six. Sir, we must look on this picture of 
our country, and then upon that presented in the statistics of the 
census just completed, if we would appreciate in any degree the 
railroad rapidity, I had almost said the lightning-line velocity, of 
our national career. 

And where, where is it all to end ? That, sir, is to be written 
hereafter. But let us not forget that, in part, at least, it is to be de- 
cided now. It requires no ghost to tell us, no second-sight or spirit- 
ual communication to assure us, that if we are true to ourselves, true 
to the principles and examples of our fathers, and true to the insti- 
tutions which they founded, our country may go forward, with the 
blessing of God, to higher and higher degrees of prosperity and power 
in safety and in peace ; its destiny ever written in the motto of its 
greatest state — Excelsior — Excelsior ! While if we are faithless to 
our trust, — if, lulled into a false security by long-continued and unin- 
terrupted success, we suflfer the public vigilance to be relaxed, and 
the public virtue to be corrupted — or, if dizzied by the rapid whirl 
of our career, and yielding to the rash impulses of the hour, we per- 



65 

mit our country to be dragged to the verge, and even plunged into 
the vortex of domestic discord or foreign strife, — it may be even our 
own Ignoble and ignominious distinction, in some volume of history 
to be written at no distant day, — that we helped to make shipwreck 
of the noblest bark that was ever launched on the tide of time. 

Sir, I beg pardon for detaining you so long. Let me only sum 
up all that I have said, and all that I feel in the concluding sen- 
timent : — 

Tlie State of New York: — Upon her soil the first formal proposition of 
Union was made ; upon her soil the first victory which gave assurance of Liberty 
was won ; upon her soil the Constitution of the United States was originally or- 
ganized. May history record that her example and her influence were always 
given to the support of Union, Liberty, and the Constitution ! 

Mr. WiNTHROP resumed his seat amid enthusiastic ap- 
plause, and his complimentary sentiment was received with 
all the honors. 

The Hon. John Cadwallader responded for the Pennsyl- 
vania Historical Society, and gave as a sentiment : — 

The Ancipint Dominion, and her historical representative here to-night. 

Prof. George Tucker, formerly of the University of Vir- 
ginia, responded for the American Philosophical Society. He 
said : — 

Mr. President, — After the wisdom and eloquence to which we 
have listened this day, I feel unwilling to trespass on your time. I 
did not know until a few minutes before I took my seat at this table 
that I was expected to represent the Philosophical Society of Pennsyl- 
vania. Another gentleman, Judge Kane,* was appointed to dis- 
charge that office, and before I left Philadelphia, I was told he cer- 
tainly would attend. Under these circumstances, I can do little 
more than express our kind feelings towards the society over which you 
preside, and our congratulations on its extraordinary success, as I 
understood from you this morning, that it now consists of twelve 
hundred members. Mr. President, it has often been a matter of 
wonder to me, that a State which has achieved so much as New York, 
should have produced no recent history of her progress, especially 
as she is almost as pre-eminent over her sister States, in letters as in 

* The father of the gallant officer, whose generous enterprise in search of Sir 
John Franklin now fills America and Europe with anxious interest 
5 



66 

commerce. In three departments, in humor, in poetry, and in fiction, 
she can boast of three sons,* who, perhaps, have no equals in Ameri- 
can literature. Probably your writers have been deterred by the 
success of the great Knickerbocker, from making the attempt, but the 
events since his day are of still greater interest than those he has so 
ably chronicled. Long after he wrote, the great canal brought the 
commerce of the lakes to this city, and Fulton gave steam navigation 
to the world. The history of your political parties, too, presents a 
theme equally curious, copious, and instructive. There have been 
your Hamiltonians and Burrites, your Clintonians and adherents of 
Van Buren — your old Hunkers and Barnburners, your Hards and 
your Softs, your Silver Greys and your Know Nothings, by which 
New York politicians mystify Europe, and bewilder the citizens of 
other States. The hititory of your great State invites the efforts of 
her most gifted sons. But let me, in their behalf, invoke the aid of 
the booksellers, who render the same service to authors as merchants 
do to farmers, by finding them a market. But they have strong in- 
ducements to reprint European books which cost them nothing rather 
than to pay for American works. I am anxious to see this bounty 
on the works of foreign authors removed ; but until it is removed by 
the national legislature, let me appeal to their patriotism and ask 
those who have enriched themselves by reprinting European produc- 
tions to use the means they so amply possess to cherish American liter- 
ature. 1 know that much has already been done in this way, but they 
may do more ; and though at first they may make less money, they 
would by a liberal outlay at present sow the seed from which they 
would reap a rich future harvest. They would moreover have the gra- 
tifying consciousness of encouraging that class of domestic products 
of which every nation is most justly proud, and they would, moreover, 
thus escape the taunts of their transatlantic rivals. Mr. President, allow 
me to tell you a story ; I promise you it shall not be a long one. 

In those days when piracy on the high seas was more common 
than at present, one who had been very successful in this line having 
been smitten by a fair damsel, married her, and under her influence, 
quitted his roving life, bought a fine house, furnished it in suitable 
style, and in no long time gave dinners and parties, and became one 
of the leaders of fashion. Even his frank, sailor-like manners had 
their admirers and imitators. In the midst of this new greatness, 
one who had been an ofl&cer under him made him a visit. The lieu- 

* It is scarcely necessary to say that Irving, Bryant^ and Cooper are here 
adverted to. 



67 

tenant was invited to dinner, but no one, I imagine, was invited to 
meet him. In the afternoon, as they sat regaling themselves with gin 
twist, their favorite beverage, said the guest, " Captain, don't you 
sometimes wish yourself again in the Salamander, scouring the seas, 
one day ankle deep in blood, and the next wallowing in gold ? " 
" Those were glorious times to be sure," said the other, "■ money does 
not come in now as fast as it did then, and as to blood, I seldom see 
it, except when I cut myself in shaving — but after all, Ben, I don't 
know but that the life of a gentleman is as happy as that of a pirate, 
and it is a damned deal more respected." 

Allow me then, Mr. President, to offer the following toast : — 

" The speedy adoption of an international copyriglit." 

10. An enliglitened and independent Judiciary: the strongest bulwark of 
Liberty and Order. 

Judge William W. Campbell responded : — 

Mr. President, — Another and a better man should have re- 
sponded to this toast. Since I came here to-night, your wishes have 
been communicated to me, and in all matters connected with the 
Historical Society, my obedience is due and is cheerfully yielded. I 
am to speak for the profession to which I belong, and which without 
vanity may be said to have acted no inferior part in the world's his- 
tory. 

Eight hundred years ago, the first Chief Justice of England 
wrapping his priestly garments over his coat of mail, celebrated Mass, 
and then mounting his charger, with baton in hand, led on the Nor- 
man Cavalry on the field of Hastings. A half a century afterwards 
the foundations of Westminster Hall were laid. The court was 
transferred from the axda regis to its own chosen and independent 
home. The judicial ermine, though it might sometimes cover the 
sword of state, seldom, if ever, covered again the sword of battle, 
and from that time down through all the ages of English and Amer- 
ican judicial history, the men who have been called upon to adminis- 
ter the laws, with a few unamiable exceptions, have generally been 
found in the ranks of those contending for freedom and the right. 
He whose name and memory every American lawyer delights to ho- 
nor and to cherish, who more than any other man illustrated judi- 
cially the Constitution of the United States, who was emphatically 
the great Chief Justice, combined in himself the soldier and states- 
man, the historian and the judge. Commencing his career as a sub- 



68 

altern in the first Virginia regiment, afterwards a member of the 
House of Burgesses of his native State — the author of the life of 
Washington — member of the Senate of the United States — foreign 
minister — and for more than a quarter of a century Chief Justice — 
John Marshall did all things well, and justly has become a great 
subject of history. 

The judges and lawyers led on the American Revolution. They 
drew up those great state papers which issued from the old Conti- 
nental Congress, and which challenged the admiration of even the 
enemies of the country. 

In later days Story and Kent have shed new lustre on the 
learning of the law, and have made the names of American judges 
familiar wherever the English and American common law finds a 
home on the earth. Chancellor Kent was an early friend and active 
member and president of this society, and it is but fitting on this oc- 
casion that a passing tribute should be paid to his memory. New 
York was the State where he was born, and was the theatre of his 
labors, and where he achieved his judicial greatness. Never had 
the State a truer son. The past history, and the present commanding 
position of the State were topics on which he delighted to discourse. 
It was my good fortune to make his acquaintance soon after I came 
to this city, many years ago, a stranger youth, and from that time 
down to the close of his life I was permitted to share somewhat of 
his confidence and his friendship. He was familiar with the entire 
range of the political and judicial history of the State, and his con- 
versation was enriched with the stores of varied learning. He was 
pre-eminently one of the great champions of liberty and order to 
which your toast refers. 

Mr. President, the year 1804, the year of the formation of this 
Historical Society, was memorable in the legal annals of New York. 
Hamilton fell, Thomas Addis Emmet landed in our city, John "Wells 
by a great efi'ort at the bar took his place in the front rank of 
American lawyers, and James Kent became the Chief Justice of the 
State. Spencer and Van Ness and Piatt were about that time enter- 
ing on their judicial careers. They are all gone. The stars which 
formed that splendid galaxy have all set. Their learning, patriot- 
ism, and fearless independence of character remain for our imitation. 
Like the Trojan youth, we may follow on. haud cequis j)assibus. On 
occasions like the present, as we bring up in brief review the 
virtues and the services of the great and the good who have gone be- 
fore us, these memories of the past sweep over us like the music of 



69 

Ossian — "sweet and mournful to the soul." The pen of the historian 
must embalm them for the benefit of future generations. 

The eleventh regular toast was as follows : — 

11. A well-conducted Press : the efScient agent of civilization. 

Mr. William C. Bry.4nt was called by the President to 
answer this toast, and said : — 

In behalf of the conductors of the press, I thank the company 
for the kind manner in which this toast has been received. Between 
the newspaper press and historical societies there is a natural con- 
sanguinity. Newspapers are the chroniclers of the day. The sheets 
which their conductors issue are like the Sibylline leaves, cast on 
the four winds, dispersed, and sure to be lost but for the care of his- 
torical societies, which collect, reposite, preserve them. There they 
are found by the historian, who examines, selects, combines the ma- 
terials they supply him, connects them into a series, a system, ex- 
tracts their philosophy, their divine essence, and gives them as ora- 
cles to all nations and ages. 

But, Mr. President, I will not weary those who listen to me with 
a long comment on a toast. On an anniversary like this, which 
looks back to the fourth year of the present century, it seems to me 
that it is well to remember those who, at an earlier period of our ex- 
istence as a nation, set themselves to study and compile its history. 
A distinguished gentleman of the eastern States has this evening ad- 
dressed us as the representative of the Massachusetts Historical So- 
ciety. Several years before your institution had an existence, the 
hand of the founder of the Massachusetts Historical Society — Dr. 
Belknap, the historian — had traced its last lines, and he slept with 
Herodotus and Xenophon. I remember his "American Biography" 
among my earliest reading ; it consists of accounts of personages 
whose names are distinguished in the annals of our country, and is 
written with a simplicity engaging to persons of all ages. Greatly 
as he has since been surpassed in historical research, in philosophy 
and narrative skill, by his countrymen of the present time — of which 
we have a shining example in the great historian who has so elo- 
quently addressed us to-day — he has the high merit of being the 
first to make American history attractive. Sixty-two years ago he 
published " The Foresters," long a favorite at New England firesides. 
In this work the story of Virginia is pleasantly shadowed out in the 
adventures of Walter Pipeweed — that of Massachusetts in the for- 



70 

tunes of John Codline ; New York figures as Peter Bullfrog ; Con- 
necticut is personated by Humphrey Ploughshare, South Carolina 
by Charles Indigo, and the quarrel between Mr. Bull, the clothier, 
and his refractory apprentices, who had established themselves in the 
forest, closes with a quit claim from Mr. Bull, renouncing all title to 
the lands on which they had settled. On this festive occasion the 
mention of a work which sought to embellish our history with the 
charms of wit and humor, I trust, will not be deemed out of place, 
although, in these respects, its fame has been eclipsed by the inimi- 
table writings of our own Diedrich Knickerbocker, whose memory at 
the next semi-centennial anniversary will, I am certain, be as fresh 
as it is to-day. 

Let me close by a toast : — 

Dr. Belkuap and his Associates : the founders of the Massachusetts Histori- 
cal Society. 

12. Popular Education : the great Interest of a Free People, and indispensa- 
ble to the continued existence of free government 

President King of Columbia College said : — 

Called upon to speak to the toast just given, I cannot refuse to 
bear my testimony to the value and indispensableness of " popular 
education." 

It is the forming agency which moulds at will the individual 
man, the social man, and the political man, and which, therefore, 
more than all other agencies, determines the character alike of men 
and their institutions. 

When, then, we speak of "popular education" we speak of the 
greatest known power over human actions and their results. But 
all is not education which is so called — nor indeed are the ends 
aimed at by popular education the same in all countries, any more 
than the means of imparting it are the same. 

There is no more universal, nor in the sense in which it is given, 
more thorough popular education than in Austria, but that educa- 
tion, popular though it be, includes no hint that the people should 
hare any part in public afi"airs, or in the control of the government. 
Letters, science, art, all tliroughout the wide domain are taught, 
but nothing of human rights, nor of popular sovereignty, nor of the 
power of majorities. All other subjects of human inquiry may be 
investigated with the utmost freedom and to the widest extent ; but 
the political domain is a closed field ; there no inquiry, no discussion 
of any sort is permitted. 



11 

Popular education with us is just the reverse ; with less of art, 
less of science, less even of letters than are taught in the Austrian 
public schools ; we found our system upon the equal rights of all ; 
upon the capacity of the people for self government, and upon their 
exclusive and inalienable right to such government. 

And each scheme produces its designed effect. Austria educates 
intelligent, quiet, obedient subjects. We educate a restless, ques- 
tioning generation of citizens, which takes nothing for granted, 
nothing for settled, and which especially claims and exercises the 
right to make and unmake its laws and government at its own good 
pleasure. I make this brief and rapid comparison to illustrate edu- 
cation as a 2)oiver that moulds men and nations at will, and thence to 
infer the importance, the vital importance, in our land of giving to 
education its proper aims and aids. 

All admit its necessity, all feel its want. It is the instinct of 
our common humanity, groping in darkness after better and brighter 
things, to pray for light. The strong, brave man of Homer's glo- 
rious epic, contending under a cloud of darkness against adverse 
fate, exclaiming, "Give us but light, and Ajax asks no more !" is 
the type of all strong, brave natures, as yet shrouded in the darkness 
and delusions of ignorance ; and striving upward and onward for 
light ! light ! light ! 

Education, gentlemen, is that light ; wide-spread popular educa- 
tion. It has that choicest quality of mercy, " it is twice blest, it 
blesseth him that gives and him that takes ; it is mightiest in the 
mightiest." If the one, in the language of our great bard, " be- 
comes the throned monarch better than his crown," so the other 
does equally become the enthroned people as investing them with 
the crown immortal and imperishable ; of knowledge taught and 
used in the love and the fear of God. For, gentlemen, in the Book 
of Truth there is no more certain and solemn truth than that " in 
the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom." I dare hardly 
think of how little our system of popular education is founded on 
this great truth. 

How few comparatively of the more enlightened and wealthy of 
our people seem to be duly impressed with the immense interest that 
belongs to common-school education, which for four out of five of our 
population is all tlie education they ever receive. It is in our 
" common schools that the nation receives its character." It has 
been well said that " mothers and schoolmasters sow the seeds either 
of anarchy, tyranny, or liberty, for the strength and destiny of any 



T.2 

community lies in the virtue and intelligence of its younger mem- 
bers." But this would lead us into long digression, and this is not 
a fitting occasion to develope such fruitful and significant topics, but 
I could not, in such a presence as this, allude at all to popular edu- 
cation without expressing my conviction as to its only safe, abiding, 
and enduring corner-stone, the knowledge, the love, and the fear of 
God. 

Assembled, as here we are, to commemorate the half-century an- 
niversary of the Historical Society, it seems natural to revert to the 
state of things as to popular education existing in our city at the 
time of the organization of this Society, and to compare it with what 
now exists. 

In 1804, when the Historical Society had its birth, no common- 
school instruction was known in New York. 

It was not till the year 1 805 that the New York Public Sdiool 
Society was incorporated under the name of the " Free School Socie- 
ty," and it is not without interest to add, that one of the most active 
and influential persons in organizing the Historical Society, was also 
very active and influential in aiding the incorporation of the Free 
School Society, De Witt Clinton. The association was a natural 
one, for History is one of the Muses — and all the Nine co-operate in 
the education of man — though it belongs to Clio alone to preserve 
the records of their acts and thoughts. 

And especially must popular education and such an association 
as this, whose honored birthday we are celebrating, act and react 
upon each other and grow, each by the growth of the other ; and so 
measurably it is now. The Historical Society, feeble at its com- 
mencement, and long feeling obscurely its way along ; slow in growth 
like the oak and all things destined to endure, has now revealed it- 
self in grand proportions, as a successful collector and conservator of 
precious archives, as the founder of a valuable library, and as the 
centre of a large circle of educated and distinguished men. In like 
manner, during the same time, the free schools from nothing have 
risen, in this city alone, to two hundred and twenty-five in number, 
and the aggregate of those taught therein during the last year ex- 
ceeds one hundred and twenty-three thousand. 

This has not been without cost, large cost — I am almost tempted 
to say, I wish it were larger, for all that is saved in education is in 
reality lost to country and to God. What nobler use, indeed, can 
be made of the wealth with which the labor and industry and intelli- 
gent enterprise of our country are crowned, than that a liberal share 



73 

of it be devoted to the spread of sound knowledge ? In a mere util- 
itarian sense, indeed, as a question of expediency, of mere profit and 
loss, it may be shown that wealth is actually rendered at once more 
secure and more productive by the means it dispenses to improve, to 
refine and to restrain — in one word, to educate a whole people. 
In proportion as we find in our tax-books a large figure in the 
column for education, will that in the column for eleemosynary and 
penal institutions be diminished, and all the more certainly as that 
education shall truly rest upon the corner-stone already indicated. 

Without detaining this company by further remarks, I ask leave 
to sum up in a toast what seems to me the relation of this Society to 
popular education : — 

The Public Schools of New York : the nursery of those who are to con- 
tribute to its future history. 

13. Woman: although last in our toasts, yet ever first in our affections. 

Theodore E. Tomlinson, Esq., responded as follows : — 

" "Woman," if first in our affections, should not be last in our 
toasts. She has fallen into my arms and I will uphold her with all 
the chivalry of the feudal ages. Woman is a theme worthy the 
poet or orator. Did not Homer the blind bard sing of woman, and 
when we read of Hector bearing thick battle on his sounding shield, 
or holding aloft young Astyanax trembling at his nodding plume, 
do we not revert to beauteous Helen — sad Andromache ? 

Did not our orator historian to-day, from whose hand the centu- 
ries seemed to fly, — did he not pause to play celestial music to woman, 
did he not say that of all things beautiful of earth, the veil of her 
spirit was most beautiful, that in our briery life she was the lily, or 

I forget, for the flowers were all emulous ; the gentle daisy lifted 

up its head, the violet breathed a newer fragrance, and the rose an- 
grily blushed woman's pride, and woman's loveliness. She is greater 
than the historian ; he but records the past, she makes history ; her 
gentle hand bends the twig that gives inclination to the oak ; on the 
infant brow, she stamps the character of the nation. It was only 
when luxury crept into the domestic circle, and stained the fireside, 
when there were no Spartan mothers, no Roman matrons, that Rome 
and Sparta fell. 

Woman is the type of civilization, in savage life a slave, in re- 
fined a queen ! What distinguishes this nation most, what im- 
presses the noble of other lauds that the " American " is the more 



T4 

delicate, tlie higher refinement, is our veneration for woman. She 
can go unharmed all through our vast country, her guardian angel 
the spirit of the people. I cannot read the future, the horizon is 
obscured, the firmament is not clear. Who can tell what will grow out 
of the conflicts of the old world, and the anxieties of the new? — 
This I believe, that as long as the American people preserve their 
respect for woman, and respect follows worth, the American Republic 
will live. This I know, that if the mothers of the nation are good 
and pure, the sons of the nation will be strong and free. 

Woman ! Empire is in thy hand, Lead forth from beyond the 
mountains, from the far Pacific, out of the virgin bosom of the 
peerless West, the Young States, and they will come to our Union, as 
mighty as our own, without a canker to consume their youth, with- 
out a cloud to darken their destiny. 

Power in arms, or song, or eloquence, has made man immortal. 
His very origin enshrined the muse of Milton. Woman's is greater 
than his. Man was made of the dust of earth, woman out of the 
image of God. She is supreme in good or evil. Did not Cleopatra 
lead captive conquerors ? Who but Eve could have destroyed Par- 
adise, where day was ecstatic joy, and night came as the approach of 
gentle music, where the couch was the fragi'ant embrace of flowers, 
where the rich, luscious grape fell without the wooing — where the 
very mountains arose in their sublimity to extend their shade over 
man's repose? Though the chosen "angel" of the "destroyer," 
still her name is stamped on the decalogue, " Honor thy father and 
thy mother." 

What eloquence so exquisite as Ruth's " thy people shall be my 
people, and thy God shall be my God? " 

In song who more impassioned than Sappho — in prophecy who 
more inspiring than Miriam, with harp and timbrel by the shores of 
the sounding sea ? 

Her destiny overshadows man's ; his fate trembles in hers. 
Napoleon tore from its heaven his morning star, Josephine, and St. 
Helena, in retribution, arose in the ocean. 

Did not Mary, the mother of Washington, fashion his great mind, 
and breathe her stainless purity into his greater heart ? 

More eloquent than tongue can tell, more glorious than pen can 
write, are the simple words, mother, daughter, sister, wife ! 
" Mother ! " how sweet from the lips of the gleeful girl, how holy from 
the trembling voice of age ! To the dying captive, to the bleeding 
soldier, to the great man, to the malefactor on the scaffold, thy name 
" mother " comes radiant with the light of young Eden days ! 



75 

'•^Yife" is thy better self; -sister," thy loveliest peer; 
'• daughter," sunshine dancing on thy knee. 

In heathen mythology Jove was the parent of wisdom — that 
sprang a goddess all create from his immortal mind. In Chris- 
tian religion, the Virgin was the mother of our Lord ! 

Woman has ever been divine — with the ancients the symbol of 
plenty, of beauty, of purity, and wisdom — Minerva all perfect, Ceres 
with her sheaf of wheat, Diana with her bended bow, Venus 
arising from the crowning foam of the great sea. With us of the 
New Testament she has been chosen as wife and daughter for the 
expression of miracle — at the marriage feast when the water blushed 
to wine, and when he bade the daughter of Jairus arise and walk. 
" Faith, Hope, and Charity abideth " most in her who touched but 
the hem of his garment and was made whole, and in the widow who, 
with her mite, gave most to her Lord. 

Yes, woman is divine. How many orisons ascend to thee. Virgin 
Mary ! Woman is divine even in her fall. Do you not remember 
that our holy Lord bowed to the earth, wrote upon the sand, and 
would not look up to her shame, her degradation, or her punish- 
ment I 

The regular toasts having been given, at the concUision of 
the response to the last, the Secretary of the Committee of Ar- 
rangements presented their report on correspondence, including 
a letter from Edward Everett. His letter will be found 
among the extracts from the correspondence printed with this 
report. 

The President thereupon rose and said : — 

Notwithstanding the distinguished gentleman, whose interesting 
communication to us has just been read, is unexpectedly absent from 
our festival this evening, yet this Society has been too often and too 
greatly indebted to this gifted son of New England, for high gratifi- 
cation and instruction, to allow this occasion to pass without a grate- 
ful recollection and notice of him in our present festivities. I there- 
fore ask you to unite with me in drinking to the health of 

Edward Everett, — Whether in the pursuits of Literature, in the labors of the 
Senate, or the higher duties of the Cabinet, he has been alike distinguished in 
all. 

Rev. Samuel Osgood being called upon, rose to speak to 
the followinjj sentiment : — 



1^ 

"E Pluribus Unum, — the memorial motto of the past; the prophetic motto 
of the future." 

Mr. Osgood began by speaking of the office of a nation's memory 
in quickening a nation's hope ; he maintained that the past, instead 
of being a dead thing, is the enduring root of the future ; and, if we 
destroy memory, her daughter, hope, will not long survive. He 
illustrated the worth of history in bringing the reC'^rcis of national 
achievements to bear upon national enterprise. With us, the muse 
of history was no wrinkled crone, dwelling among the dust of 
sepulchres, but a radiant creature, ever young with liberty and hope. 

He then spoke of our national motto, " E Pluribus Unum," as 
representing our holiest remembrance and our fairest hope. The 
colonial history of the provinces illustrates how it was that the many 
towns and settlements became one under the influence of a common 
country, a common conflict, and a common constitution. — how mar- 
vellously elements so various were harmonized into one organic 
system. It was equally remarkable, that when the many became 
one, the unity did not destroy the natural and healthy diversity in 
the constituent parts, and the Diawj kept their independence and 
vitality in the orie. He compared the American people, under one 
President, with the French nation, which, in 1804, the year this 
Society was established, consolidated its conflicting elements under 
an Emperor's rule, and the liberty of the many was enslaved to the 
will of the one. In our country, the separate States retained their 
old individual characteristics after being brought together under the 
Federal Constitution. Massachusetts was Massachusetts still, and 
New York was New York before and after the Union. These faces 
about this social board show the old Knickerbocker feature as in 
the days of old Stuyvcsant ; and if you wish to know how Massa- 
chusetts keeps her characteristics look thither at Winthrop, and 
read in that face two centuries and a quarter of the Old Bay State's 
history, as, in an authentic copy of the Puritan Governor's handsome 
face, true now as ever to the stamp, an honest man's nature. 

Mr. Osgood went on to show the union of free individuality with 
national organization, especially during the last half century, not- 
withstanding the apparently alienating tendency of distance between 
States, differences between parties and sections, and the conflicts 
between the foreign manners of our millions of immigrants witli the 
old nationality of our land. He spoke of the power of the locomotive 
engine which was first used in 1801 in neutralizing distance; he 
then illustrated the power of party difl'erences in developing indi- 



77 

vidual freedom, and paid an especial tribute to the independence of 
our minorities in spite of the dominion of the majority. He touched 
upon the feud between North and South, and defended the largest 
liberty of speech as quite compatible with our Union. He closed 
with remarking upon the power of our American nationality in 
assimilating our foreign population, and declared that our stomach 
was big and strong enough to digest the Irish and the Grermans into 
sound American blood in spite of themselves. The greenest sprig 
of Erin could not be long on our soil without catching something of 
its flavor. If Paddy once got into the hopper of our national mill 
he would stand a fair chance of coming out ere long minus his shil- 
lelah and whiskey bottle, although he might, perhaps, still keep 
hold of his rosary. 

He gave as a sentiment : — 

The America of the Future, the loyal child of Old America. One nation of 
many independent States ; many independent States of many free minds. 

Rev. Dr. Bethune was loudly called for. and with evident 
reluctance rose to say, that, having already obeyed the wishes 
of the Society in speaking at their place of assemblage in the 
afternoon, he should have been excused from saying any thing 
more, as it had not been his intention, and was not now his 
wish. 

The Doctor then sat down ; but, on being pressed to go on, 
he said : — 

The praise of history has been the theme to-day ; yet, since you 
insist on my speaking, let me ask, What is History? Its uncer- 
tainty has been painfully felt by us all ; but never, perhaps, so much 
as of late, since the new school, of which Niebuhr, and Heeren, and 
Arnold, and Grote are eminent members, has cast doubt upon all 
the records of the early past, turning into myths all that was once 
flogged into us respecting the founders of Athens and Rome. 
Theseus and Cecrops are visionary creatures, like those that seem to 
look out upon us from the misty shadows of retreating night ; and 
even the wolf-nurse of the first twin-Romans, whose thunder-scarred 
image still inhabits the Capitol on the Seven Hills, represents a 
fable no more worthy of credit than a nursery story. Following the 
same rules of trying evidence, how much may be myth and how much 
fact in our own received annals ! Who ever saw Brother Jonathan ? 
or Uncle Sam 1 or Yankee Doodle 1 Plymouth Rock, noble as its 



IS 

legend is, may be nothing more than a myth to represent the rugged 
and immovable virtue which underlies the cultivated excellence of 
New England character. Nay, I have sometimes thought, when 
looking at the grave visages which conceal the warm cordiality of 
our New England brethren, that they have never recovered from 
the chill of the bleak, sleety December day when the legend says 
they landed at Plymouth. With these doubts on my mind respect- 
ing history, I should say no more about it ; but, as a New Yorker 
born and bred, I am moved by more grave feeling ; for, while I look 
around me on this pleasant company, and am glad to recognise many 
friends whose birth-places are elsewhere, I miss the faces of not a 
few whom it was our happiness to see gathered en similar occasions 
in former years. I need not name them,-T-I dare not, — for I could 
not utter the words without too much emotioi ; and the New Yorkers 
who hear me need not to be reminded of the dead, who, if now living, 
would be exulting among us in the prosperity of our Society. But 
how few, among the many here, are genuine, born New Yorkers ! 
How soon we who remain must follow them into the eternal future ! 
How dear to us is the memory of the departed ! . . . . We go 
back to the scenes of childhood and boyhood, when our strongest 
friendships were formed, and the ties which have made life most 
happy were first thrown about us. Let me ask : Is there a man here 
who ever ran down Flattenberg ? (Yes! Yes! Yes! cried a score of 
voices), or skated on Lispenard's Meadows ? (Yes! Yes! Yes!) or 
Burr's Pond, or Stuyvesant's Pond? (Yes! Yes! Yes!) Then, 
my friends, old friends, true born New Yorkers of no recent day, 
I greet you well, and say, with a full heart, Goii bless you ! But let 
us remember our birth-place not without a sense of our filial respon- 
sibility ; and hold ourselves bound so to live and act, that we may 
do all in our power to advance the honor and glory of our native 
city. 

Rev. Dr. S. K. Lothrop of Boston, being next called upon, 
responded to the call in a brief speech, concluding "with the fol- 
lowing sentiment : — 

The States of this Union. What is peculiar in each of them derives all its 
vahie, its efficacy, and its power, from that wbich is common to all of them — 
their Union. 

The President in proposing the following volunteer toast, 
said : — 



79 

Three of the earliest and most distinguished members of 
our Society are absent from our festival this evening. These cher- 
ished names are so associated in our early intercourse, are so united 
in our admiration of their literary productions, and the many excel- 
lencies of their character, that I will not separate them in the toast 
I am about to propose, and to which, I am sure, you will cordially 
respond. 

I ask you, then, to unite with me in drinking to the health of 

Washington Irving, James K. Paulding, and Gulian C. Verplanck, names 
dear to New York as tliey are to this Society. 

James W. Gerard, Esq., being called upon, made some 
appropriate remarks, and concluded with the following senti- 
ment : — 

The Present Age — the Age of Iron. 

The President presenting the following volunteer toasts, 
said : — 

Our festival to-night is graced by the presence of one, who, if he 
be not a frequent attendant at the meetings of our Society, is always 
a welcome one. His literary productions, while they do honor to 
himself, shed a lustre upon the character of his country. I ask you, 
then, to unite in doing honor to his name in drinking to the health 
of 

Williaji Cullen Bryant, the Poet of Nature, and the Poet of our Country. 

We very unexpectedly miss from this joyous occasion one whose 
presence among us was once as familiar as it was always welcome and 
exhilarating. His was a sunny and genial nature ; and, in the cor- 
diality and charm of bis intercourse, he won our hearts, and kept 
them too. He was a jewel lent us by Connecticut, but which, as in 
many other cases, she has reclaimed to herself 

I ask you then with me to renew our recollection of this former 
and cherished friend by drinking to the health of 

Fitz-Geeene Halleck, 

"One of the few, the immortal name-s, 
Tliat were not born to die." 

The President then retired, and the chair was taken by 
Frederic De Peyster, Esq., First Vice-President of the So- 
ciety. 



80 

Col. ScHouLER of Cincinnati, being called upon, responded 
briefly, giving as a toast : — 

Our Country, and Union for the sake of the Union. 

Joseph Blunt, Esq., rose and said : — 

Mr. President: — Such anniversaries as we now celebrate are 
apt to make us take a retrospective view of the intervening period, 
and serve to mark, in a peculiar manner, the progress of mankind. 
At the time when this Society was first established, a war was com- 
mencing in Europe, which eventually brought in as parties the whole 
of the civilized world. 

The fiftieth anniversary of this Society witnesses the commence- 
ment of hostilities of equally portentous character. It is deeply 
interesting to mark the change of the tone and principles adopted by 
the belligerents of this day as compared with those of the former 
period, and especially towards this country. 

In 1804, the doctrine of perpetual allegiance on the part of a 
subject towards the sovereign in whose dominions he was born, was 
generally accepted as a part of European law ; and one of the parties 
to the contest at that day claimed the services of her subjects in such 
a moment, without reference to the country they had adopted or the 
length of their residence abroad. In enforcing this claim by impress- 
ment from American vessels, it often happened that native citizens 
of the United States were taken and compelled to perform military 
service under a foreign flag. With the view of preventing this 
abuse, the American Minister in London, at the inception of hos- 
tilities, had arranged a treaty with the Secretary for Foreign Afiairs, 
prohibiting impressment from American vessels at sea ; but Lord 
St. Vincent, who was at the head of the Admiralty, insisting on the 
narrow seas being excluded from this arrangement, Mr. King wisely 
determined to leave the matter to the decision of time rather than 
seemingly to acquiesce in the assertion of a principle so monstrous 
and indefensible. Before one half of the intervening period had 
elapsed, this claim of impressment from American vessels was for 
ever abandoned. Thirty years ago it was tauntingly asked by the 
Edinburgh Review, Who reads an American book ? Even at that 
early day, the country whose mouth-piece it was had read the book 
where was recorded the determination that impressment from under 
the American flag had for ever ceased ; and the gallant Ingraham, 



81 

when he avowed his resolve, in the harbor of Smyrna, to vindicate 
the right of a naturalized citizen against the claim of perpetual alle- 
giance on the part of the Austrian Emperor, only gave utterance to 
the general feeling of the public mind at home, and exemplified the 
striking contrast between the present day and the hour that wit- 
nessed the attack on the Chesapeake. 

No less remarkable is the difterence between the code of maritime 
warfare put forth at this time and that adopted at the commencement 
of the former combat. Assuming the colonial system to be part of 
the established state of the world, England then determined to pre- 
vent neutrals from engaging in the trade between Europe and 
American colonie.''. from which they were ordinarily excluded ; and, 
under the pretence that credit was given on duties payable at the 
custom houses here, the products of the tropics were seized in Amer- 
ican vessels bound to Europe from the United States, and condemned, 
although proven to be American property, and regularly exported 
from the United States. 

Now the belligerent parties at the commencement of the war 
avow their intention not to act upon those principles, that were then 
deemed essential to the successful prosecution of the contest. AVe 
hear of no powerful fleets sent out, to compel nations to disavow the 
principles of a confederacy armed to vindicate neutral rights. 

On the contrary, both parties profess their determination to 
respect neutral rights, and to exercise their belligerent powers with 
the least possible inconvenience to those not engaged in the war. 
This avowal is made not as a concession to neutral remonstrances, 
nor as the result of a long and tedious negotiation. It is put forth 
in advance of discussion, and to calm the public mind of Christendom 
as to the scope of belligerent action upon the commerce of the world. 

The colonial system, witli all its pretensions to monopolize the 
resources and control the trade of one hemisphere for the benefit of 
another, has almost disappeared; and seems about to be absorbed in 
that gulf of oblivion, which has swallowed up the sovereignty of the 
narrow seas and the divine right of kings. It is a matter of no in- 
considerable pride to us, as citizens of a free republic, that this 
change in public law has been in entire accordance with the views 
and principles of those patriotic and far-seeing men who establislied 
our political institutions. 

They seemed to aim in their foreign, as well as in their domestic 
policy, to advance such principles as should secure the greatest hap- 
piness to the greatest number. No exclusive privileges, either in 
spiritual or temporal affairs, found an abiding place in their system. 
G 



82 

Hence the unexampled growth of the United States. 

Without an army, unless that name be given to those few regi- 
ments that are hardly sufficient to furnish an armed police for this 
extensive country ; with a navy scarcely large enough to enforce our 
revenue laws, this country has, during the existence of this society, 
taken the first rank among civilized nations, and without assumins a 
military attitude has enforced her claims and maintained her prin- 
ciples among the powers of the earth. 

The imposing spectacle of a modern empire, with her military 
fortresses and naval outposts scattered over the surface of the globe, 
and saluting the rising sun with a continuous strain of the martial 
airs of England, is well calculated to make a strong impression of 
her power and sway. 

My mind, however, is as much, if not more, impressed at the 
quiet attitude of this republic, — with a common boundary extending 
from the Atlantic to the Pacific, unstudded by forts or citadels, and 
throughout that long extent, scarcely a flag "flouting the air" in 
rivalry with that of a power whose grasp encircles the earth. 

Secure and unprotected by any outward display of military 
force, she is rapidly subduing the wilderness, developing the re- 
sources of the continent, and building up an empire of unrivalled 
strength. The woodman's a^e and the blacksmith's hammer are the 
instruments to develope her growth, and yet, like the majestic and 
intelligent elephant, she possesses in the implements that furnish her 
subsistence an engine of power, from which the more ferocious ani- 
mals shrink in conscious dismay. 

Much of this strength is owing to the obvious moderation and 
justice of her political principles. The success of her government, 
and the acceptance of her maxims in national law, is mainly due to 
their conformity to justice and truth. While the American govern- 
ment shapes its course under their guidance, no other government 
can withstand its career. Its moral power must prove an overmatch 
for their mere physical force. 

When it throws off its allegiance to those great principles, it be- 
comes a Samson shorn of his strength. 

Permit me to propose as a sentiment, — 

Public Opinion : the monarch of modern society — let courtiers remember 
that honor is due to those who speak truth to Kings. 

The toast next offered was, — 

The Thirty-one Stewards. 



83 

WoRTHiNGTON RoMAiNE, Esq., being called upon, said : — 

Mr. President — Our Chairman's absence accounts for this Ivind- 
ness, especially as Secretaries, from their keeping of minutes, are 
supposed to be acquainted with what has been going on. 

In responding, I must be short, as the hour is late. Well, sir, 
the Committee of Stewards met and organized. One ac(|uainted 
with the members on the list will readily perceive, politically speak- 
ing, a curious admixture ; namely — Democrats, both Hard Shells 
and Softs — "Whigs, Silver Grays, with all the other kinds, and so on. 

A strong disposition was evinced on the part of many, who were 
new in their position, to ascertain their peculiar duties ; but the 
secret must out, no one could be prevailed upon to give them that 
desirable information. Thus every thing, down to the tasting sup- 
per, was carried by the KnowNothings. Of this quiet party I shall 
say no more for the present. 

The coincidence of our own number agreeing with that of the 
States induced us (modestly, of course) to resolve ourselves into a 
Committee of the Whole on the State of the Union, but only for this 
occasion. We were, therefore, to take care of the representatives 
who had been invited. Every thing was prepared. 

And now, sir, our treat at banquet board, we trust no usual one, 
has, I hope, been enjoyed by all here. Thirteen, or Thirty-one, we 
love the old as well as new, and all alike. 

Mr, President, you know New Yorkers well enough to feel 
that the estimate of them contained in the History of our State, 
by Mr. Brodhead, now with us, sir, is not too high a one. Justly 
proud, as so many must be, of such a birth-place, what heart so cold 
that warms not with the burning words and noble themes that to- 
night have met our ears. All here must love their native soil, yet 
each seems willing to acknowledge the other as his own. Let, sir, 
those States who have them, show to such others as have them not, 
that Historical Societies can, from the embers of the past, preserve 
many live coals wherewith to cheer our very hearth-stones ; that they 
can teacJi, us how to offer, upon the sacred altar at home, a sacrifice 
whose incense shall meet an approval not only here but from above. 
In such a view, allow me to give you, as applicable to both the present 
and the future, this sentiment : — 

May oui* Historical Societies exert their iafliience in cementing a Union that 
should only cease with time itself. 

A motion to adjourn was passed shortly after twelve o'clock. 



84 



The following list embraces the names of the guests present, 
including delegates from the several Societies represented on this 
occasion : viz. : — 



JOHN W. FRANCIS. 
JAMES M. MATHEWS. 
JOHN W. MULLIGAN. 
J. G. KOHL. 

FREDERIC P. STANTON. 
WILLIAM ADAMS. 



GEORGE BANCROFT. 
CHARLES KING. 
WILLIAM C. BRYANT. 
SAMUEL OSGOOD. 
JOHN LORD. 
GEORGE W. GREENE. 



From the Maine Illstorical Society. 

JOHN S. C. ABBOTT. NEHEMIAH CLEVELAND. 



From the Massachusetts Historical Society. 



ROBERT C. WINTHROP. 
SAMUEL K. LOTHROP. 



GEORGE E. ELLIS. 
WILLIAM P. LUNT. 



From the Connecticut Jlistorical Society. 
HENRY BAENAED. CHARLES HOSMER. 

From the New Jersey Historical Society. 

WILLIAM A. AVHITEHEAD. 

From the Pennsyhanin Historical Society. 

JOHN CADWALLADER. 

From tlie American Antiquarian Society. 

STEPHEN SALISBURY. 

From the American Philosophical Society. 
GEORGE TUCKER. 



Committee of Reception. 



ALEXANDER H. STEVENS. 
HARVEY P. PEET. 
LAMBERT SUYDAM. 
JAMES PHALEN. 
CALEB O. HALSTED. 
P. S. VAN PELT. 
PETER COOPER. 
HENRY E. DAVIES. 
JOEL T. HEADLEY. 
BENJAMIN W. BONNET. 



JOSEPH FOWLER. 
AMHERST WIGHT. 
THOMAS SUFFERN. 
ALEXANDER W. BRADFORD. 
BENSON J. LOSSING. 
TIMOTHY HEDGES. 
JAMES F. DE PEYSTER. 
JOHN L. MASON. 
GERARD STUYVESANT. 
CHARLES P. KIRKLAND. 



85 



EXTRACTS FROM CORRESPONDENCE. 



1. From Dr. T. Eomeys: Beck, dated Albany, October 19, 1854, re- 
gretting liis inability to attend : — 

" Being a member of the New York Historical Society of nearly forty 
years' standing, I can properly appreciate its services in the cause of 
American Literature." 

2. From Hon. James K. Paulding, dated Hyde Park, Dutchess County, 
October 19, 1854, acknowledging receipt of the invitation of the Com- 
mittee: — 

"This proof of their kind remembrance is deeply felt by one who has 
been so long out of sight that he could not complain had he been entirely 
forgotten by his old friends. 

"It would afford me great pleasure to attend your celebration ; but the 
distance of my residence from Xew York, though it may be travelled in a 
few hours, renders the journey fatiguing to one of my age and habits, 
and I trust you will accept this as a sufticient apology for respectfully 
declining your invitation. 

" I have not been inattentive to the labors of the Society, especially 
for the last few years, and am fully sensible of the importance of its ob- 
jects, as well as the zeal and ability with which they have been pursued ; 
and, though I have taken no part in tliese labors, my best wishes for their 
success have always attended them. None of us will probably live to see 
another "Semi-centennial Anniversary," but, I trust, it will be celebrated 
by successors equally zealous and equally successful in collecting and pre- 
serving those memorials of our early history, which time will only make 
more interesting and honorable." 

3. From the Hon. William A. Duek, dated Inglewood, near Morris- 
town, N. J., October 20, 1854, accepting the invitation of the Com- 
mittee. 

4. From Sir Henry Ellis, dated liritish Museum, October 22, 1854, 
regretting his inability to be present at the celebration : — 

" I should have been very luappy to have heard a eulogistic address 
from my kind friend the Hon. George Bancroft, who well knows the 
points to which the aim of your Historical Society should be pointed ; and 
with whose brilliantly impressive powers in eloquence I am not unac- 
quainted." 

5. From Dr. John W. Francis, dated New York, October 23, 1854, 
accepting the invitation of the Committee. 



86 

6. From the lion. Egbert 0. Winthrop, dated Boston, October 23, 
1854, accepting the invitation of the Committee. 

7. From Lord Campbell, dated London, October 25, 1854, expressing 
his gratification with the invitation, which he is unable to accept. 

8. From the Hon. Jared Sparks, LL.D., dated Cambridge, October 
25, 1854, fearing that his engagements at the time will not permit him to 
be present. 

9. From Washington Irving, dated Sunnyside, October 2G, 1854, 
accepting the invitation of the Committee. 

10. From Sir Edmund W. Head, Bart., Governor-General of Canada. 
&c., &c., dated Washington, October 27, 1854, regretting that he cannot 
avail himself of the invitation of the Committee. 

11. From Eev. James M. Mathews, dated New York, October 31, 
1854, accepting the invitation of the Committee. 

12. From the Hon. James Buchanan, dated London, October 31, 1854, 
acknowledging the communication of the Committee. 

13. From the Hon. John Law, dated Evansville, Indiana, October 30, 
1854, regretting his inability to be present. 

14. From the Hon. IlERScrtELL V. Johnson, Governor of Georgia, 
dated Executive Department, Milledgeville, Ga., October 30,. 1854, re- 
gretting his inability to be present, and transmitting a donation to the 
library — the " Historical Collections of Georgia " and the " Statistics of 
Georgia," by the Rev. George "White. 

15. From the Hon. William H. Seward, dated Auburn, October 31, 
1854, regretting his inability to be present. 

IG. From the Hon. J. A. Matteson, Governor of Illinois, dated Spring- 
field, October 31, 1854, regretting his inability to be present. 

17. From the Hon. William B. Lawrence, dated Newport, E. I., 
November 1, 1854, accepting the invitation of the Committee. 

18. From the Eev. William Cunningham, D.D., dated New College, 
Edinburgh, November 7, 1854 : — 

" It is impossible that I can accept of the invitation because of ray 
ordinary imperative occupations at this season. But I joyfully embrace 
the opi)ortnnity of assuring you of the deep interest I take in the history 
of the United States, of the conviction I entertain that the last half cen- 
tury of your country's history has been one of progress unexampled in the 
history of the world, and of my sincere desire tbat tlie next half century 
of your history may, through the Divine blessing, prove at least equally 
auspicious." 

19. From George Grote, Esq., dated London, November 2, 1854, 
regretting his inability to be present, and wishing "all success and pros- 
perity " to the Society. 



87- 

20. From Charles B. Tkego, Esq., Secretarj' of the American Philo- 
sophical Society, dated Philadelphia, Xovemher 4, 1854, comnuinicating 
their acceptance of the invitation to send a delegate from that Society. 

21. From the lion. Joiix P. Kennedy, dated Baltimore, Novemher 4, 
1854, regretting his inability to be present. 

22. From the Hon. Charles Francis Adams, dated Quincy, iSTovem- 
ber 5, 1854, regretting his inability to be present. 

23. From Thomas Biddle, Jr., Secretary of the Ilistorical Society of 
Pennsylvania, dated Philadelphia, November 5, 1854, commnnicatinir 
their acceptance of the invitation to send a delegate from that Society. 

25. From William A. WnixEnEAo, Esq., Corresponding Secretary of 
the New Jersey Historical Society, dated Newark, November 8, 1854, 
communicating their acceptance of the invitation to send a delegate from 
that Society. 

25. From William Gilmore Simms, Esq., dated Charleston, Novem- 
ber 9, 1854:— 

"Your noble institution has always had my hearty sympathies, as 
well because of its component merit as because of the objects contem- 
plated in its organization. It would give me great pleasure to join with 
^•our reunion^ and share the pleasant festivities which it promises ; but 
I am sorry to say that my domestic interests and necessities will fetter me 
at home this winter, and I can only tender you a warm assurance, from 
a distance, that I shall be witli you in spirit, as truly hopeful as any pre- 
sent, of the good and grateful results which such a gathering promises for 
the history and literature of tlie country. In such a region as ours, where 
the material interests of the city are perpetually demanding and compelling 
consideration over all others, it is peculiarly well and fortunate tliat there 
are some few minds willing to go ai>art from the great masses, and concen- 
trate their energies and talents, at stated periods, to the higher objects of 
humanity. You can effect much in your province for the development 
of the true civilization, which is something much rarer and nobler than 
a people can ever attain by the consideration only of tlie vulgarly useful. 
That sucli is your object I feel assured ; that you will attain it, I fervently 
desire and believe. You iiave noble minds at work, and generous spirits, 
eager in the prosecution of toils, wliich survive all the common purposes 
of society, and elevate and purge the society, which a too excessive regard 
to the material nmst always, in the end, degrade. I cheerfully and grate- 
fully send my feeble voice over the tract which separates us, that it 
may swell, in however small degree, those echoes in the popular mind 
and heart which it is your desire to awaken, and make permanent and 
powerful voices in the land. That you may succeed in this virtuously 
ambitious purpose is my earnest desire." 

20. From the Hon. William A. Graham, dated Hillsborough, N. C, 
November 13, 1854, regretting his inability to be present: — 

"Considering the situation of your Society, its acquisitions in the first 
half century of its existence, and, may I add, the characters of the men 
who compose it, it possesses advantages for exploring and elucidating the 
subjects of history, unequalled, perhaps, by tliose of any similar institution 



88 

in America. Like tlie commerce of the great city in Avhich it holds its 
seat, it is destiuecl, from the intimate rehitions of the States, and the 
facilities it enjoys for literary and intellectual communication, to extend 
the range of its investigations far beyond the mere memorials of local 
history in the State of New York, abounding as that does in aboriginal 
traditions; the legends of the Dutch Colonies; the conquest and conse- 
quent domination of Britain; the Indian, the Ante-Revolutionary, Revo- 
lutionary, and Post-Revolutionary Wars, which have rendered so many 
of its localities classical ground in the annals of the nation ; and the prog- 
ress of a fourth or fifth-rate member of the Confederacy, at the Declara- 
tion of Independence, to an empire of thi-ee millions of freemen, filled 
every where with the monuments of a high civilization. But when and 
long before these engrossing topics shall be exhausted, the erudite re- 
searches of your Association will shed their light on whatever is interest- 
ing in tHe developments, social, civil, religious, political, or natural, in the 
land oflRaleigh and the Roanoke, the Huguenots and Santee, De Soto and 
the Father of Waters, and the new Anglo-American domains on the Rio 
Grande and the Pacific. 

" I can imagine no studies more elevating and ennobling to their vo- 
taries — more fruitful in patriotic and humanizing results — more promotive 
of veneration and aftection for the union of the States — and no field of 
history, ancient or modern, half so full of attraction and interest. 

"Accept, gentlemen, my congratulations on the past, and my best 
wishes for the success of the future labors of your Society." 

27. From the lion. IIexkt Barxakd, President of the Connecticut 
Historical Society, dated Hartford, November l-t, 1854, communicating 
their acceptance of the invitation to send a delegate from that Society. 

28. From the Hon. Stephes Salisbury, President of the American 
Antiquarian Society, dated Worcester, No\'ember 14, 1854, conununicating 
their acceptance of the invitation to send a delegate from that Society. 

29. From the Hon. Riciiakd Rush, dated Sydenham, near Philadel- 
phia, November 14, 1854 : — 

" The large and enlightened objects of your Society are set forth in the 
terms of your invitation, and few are uninformed of the good results of its 
operations during the half-century of its existence. This Cycle of Time is 
memorable for the prodigious strides made Avithin it towards the material 
and intellectual advancement of mankind. I am of those who remember 
the admirable discourse to your body, pronounced by your eminent citizen 
and fellow-member, De Witr. Clinton, whose early elibrts in alliance with 
those of Gouverneur Morris, your Coldens, your Livingstons, your Schu}'- 
lers, and others, for opening upon a grand scale the resources of your 
State, formed, by its noble example of bold yet wise enterprise to other 
States of the confederacy, an epoch in American prosperity and power. 
It made absolutely a point in our public history by its speedy conse- 
quences, jterhaps more important than any other after the Revolution and 
the adojjtion of the Federal Constitution. I am of those also who remem- 
ber the general joy felt when the genius of Fulton achieved its first im- 
mortal triumphs, de fccto^ before the world, by ascending the Hudson to 
Albany l)y steam, in defiance of wind and tide. He did this certainly un- 
der New York aus])ices, and, if I do not mistake, encouraged and incited 
l)y individuals of your public spirited Society. Nor must I forget that 
superb and imposing aquatic procession, when the Governor of your State 



89 

poured water into the Atlantic brought from the lakes, in your first Erie 
canal-boat, to ooniiueinorate. by a spectacle of aitpropriate grandeur, the 
completion — after long predictions that it Avould not be completed — of 
that great work of internal navigation — the greatest then known to any 
part of the United States. And well did it merit so gorgeous a commemo- 
ration, amidst the shouts of thousands and thousands, the roar of artillery, 
and all other demonstrations of public rejoicing; for never did the inter- 
mingling of waters produce results more beneficial to whole connnunities 
of men. 

"To have been invited to the coming semi-centennial festival of a So- 
ciety whose annals can recount so many names, past and present, known to 
historical and other renown, and wliich has put in motion and helped to 
put in motion deeds of public utility and magnitude, is an honor of which 
I am gratefully sensible. In expressing this feeling, I am compelled to 
add, with unfeigned regret, that obstacles I am unable to overcome take 
from me the gratification of being personally present on an occasion so 
full of interest." 

30. From J. K. Tefft, Esq., Corresponding Secretary of the Georgia 
Historical Society, dated Savannah, November 14, 1854, communicating 
their acceptance of the invitation to send a delegate from that Society. 

31. From Hon. Daxiel D. Bahnaed, dated Albany, November 14, 
1854, regretting his inability to be present. 

32. From Georgk S. IIillaed, Esq., dated Boston, Nov. 14, 1854, re- 
gretting his inability to be present. 

33. From Major-General Wixfield Scott, dated New York, Novem- 
ber 15, 1854:— 

"Having lost the day of your celebration, I was about to answer your 
flattering note affirmatively ; but, pausing for inquiry, I am to meet the 
Secretary of War at Washington the same day — Monday next, at twelve 
o'clock. 

"I very mucli regret the interference of this engagement, for I am 
anxious to cultivate intimate relations with the New York Historical So- 
ciety, and its approaching celebration cannot fail to be highly interesting." 

34. From the Clievalier Hui.semanx, Austrian Charge d'AfFaires, dated 
Washington City, November 15, 1854, regretting his inability to be present. 

35. From Joseph W. Moultox, Esq., dated November IG, 1854, ac- 
cepting the invitation of the Committee. 

36. From Senor Don Felipe Molina, Minister Plenipotentiary from 
Central American States, dated Washington, November 10, 1854, regret- 
ting his inability to be present. 

37. From the Hon. Hexry Duttox, Governor of Connecticut, dated 
New Haven, November 17, 1854, regretting his inability to be present. 

38. From William B. Eeed, Esq., dated Philadelphia, November 17, 
1854, regretting his inability to be present. 

39. From Henry Pv. ScnooLCRAFT, Esq., dated Wasliington, Novt^mber 



90 

17. 1854, regretting Lis inability to be present, and communicating the fol- 
lowing sentiments : — 

"HiSTOEioAL SociKTiES IN Ameeioa : While they are the true aids of 
useful letters and popular knowledge, holding high the lamp of research, 
the healing oil which supplies the flame derives none of its brilliancy 
from party strifes. 

" De Witt Clinton : One of the early and efficient friends and 
founders of the New York Historical Society ; a man who was great in 
whatever sphere he moved. Whether as a scholar, a public economist, or 
a statesman, lie shed a brilliant light on the path he trod. Ilis heart 
beat in unison with all the best humanities of life. He lived to fulfil the 
highest duties of a citizen, and a public benefactor ; and has left his name 
to the State, as one of her most honored and treasured legacies." 

40. From the Hon. Edward Everett, dated Boston, November 17, 
1854 :— 

" I was favored a short time since, with your official invitation to at- 
tend the Anniversary Festival of the New York Historical Society. I 
have also had the honor to be named as a member of the delegation of 
the Massachusetts Historical Society, appointed to be present on behalf of 
that body on this pleasing occasion. 

" It would afford me the greatest pleasure were it in my power to at- 
tend a celebration of so much interest and importance. The desire of 
hearing the discourse of your President is almost too strong to be resisted. 
Other inducements make the occasion one of unusual attraction ; but do- 
mestic circumstances prevent my leaving home. 

" The half-century which has elapsed since the organization of your 
Society, has been filled every where, and nowhere more than in New 
York, with great events and great names. AYhen your Association was 
founded, the State of New York, with a population at the last preceding 
census short of six hundred thousand, was the tliird in a Union of seven- 
teen States. She is now, with a population of more than tliree millions at 
the last census, by far the largest member of a Union of thirty-one States. 
With the increase of population there lias been an increase of agricultural, 
manufacturing, and conmiercial wealth which defies estimate ; a multipli- 
cation almost unlimited of all tlie noble institutions of religion, education, 
philanthropy, and general culture, which gives so much of its efficiency to 
our modern civihzation. 

"Your own imperial city with Brooklyn, numbered in 1800 but sixty- 
four thousand inhabitants ; the tAvo cities cannot, I suppose, now count 
less than ten or eleven times that number. Besides this, your vast me- 
tropolis, look at the interior : 

"Adde tot egregias urbes, operuinque laborem 
Tot congesta manu praruptis oppida saxis, 
Fluminaque insuetos subter labentia muros." 

And then the great men who have passed some portion at least of the last 
half-century on the stage of life, who have founded or promoted, achieved 
or adorned this marvellous i)rogress ; men like Hamilton, who organized 
tlie public credit; like Jay, who conducted the foreign affairs of the coun- 
try at tlie most critical i)eriod of its existence, and never wrote a line that 
needed to be qualified or unsaid ; like Clinton, who solemnized that great 
union of tlie waters, and Morris, his fervid and efficient co-operator; like 
Fulton, who first, within your limits, subdued the winds and the waves to 
the mastery of steam ; like Cooper, the great American novelist ; like 



91 

Kent and AVlieaton, •who, in the two great departments of legal science, 
the municipal and the jjublic law, have enriched the literature of their 
countr}' with works of standard excellence, and taken tiieir place among 
the teachers of mankind. 

" AVith respect to two of the names mentioned, Clinton and Fulton, when 
we consider, in reference to the former, the grandeur of the conception of 
making New York tlie outlet of the great lakes — the difficulties to be 
overcome in the state of engineering at that time — the limited financial 
resources then at command — with the absolutely inappreciable local utili- 
ty of the enterprise ; and when, in the case of Fulton, we contemplate the 
mighty influence of his achievements upon all the arts of locomotion — the 
almost total revolution in commercial and military navigation to which it 
is leading, I scarce know where in the history of discovery and invention 
we can lind brighter names. 

"Nor have you less to boast of in the studies which more immediately 
belong to an historical society. No great branch of literature has been so 
successfully cultivated in America as history; and I believe that even Eu- 
ropean criticism, not over partial to merit on this side of the Atlantic, will 
bear me out when I say, that in addition to many works of sterling value, 
which I have no room here to name, America has within twenty-five 
years, produced three historians, whose works will go down to the latest 
posterity with those that have already stood the test of ages. I am not 
more confident of the abiding reputation of Herodotus, Thucydides, and 
Xenophon — of Livy, Sallust, and Tacitus — of Hume, Gibbon, Robertson, 
Hallam, and Macaulay, than I am of the abiding reputation of Irving, 
Prescott, and Bancroft. I believe their works will be read till the English 
language is forgotten. 

" I rejoice to be able to add that, while they belong assuredly not 
merely to the country, but to the world, our two States may claim the 
more immediate property in them, in nearly equal shares. The author of 
the "Life of Columbus," by birth and residence is wholly yours; the au- 
thor of "Ferdinand and Isabella," in tlie same sense, is Avholly ours; Avhile 
the Historian of the United States has divided himself pretty fairly be- 
tween us ; — and, to prevent either of us from being too proud of our share, 
runs away from us both in the summer." 

41. From Lieut. Col. J. J. Abekoeombie, U. S, A., dated Fort Colum- 
bus, November 17, 1854, regretting his inability to be present. 

42. From James Lenox, Esq., dated New York, November 18, 1854, 
regretting his inability to be present. 

43. From E. B. O'Cai.lagiian, Esq., dated Albany, November 18, 1854, 
regretting his inability to be present. 

44. From Prof. Samuel Jacksox, dated Philadelphia, November 18, 
1854, regretting his inability to be present. 

45. From the Hon. James Savage, dated Boston, November 18, 1854, 
regretting his inability to be present. 

46. From Senor Don Juan N. Almonte, Minister from Mexico, dated 
Washington, Nov. 18, 1854, regretting his inability to be present. 

47. From the Hon. Chaules Sumner, dated Boston, November 19, 
1854, regretting his inability to be present. 



92 

48. From Jonx F. Ceamptox, Es(]., British Minister, dated Washing- 
ton, November 19, 18'54, regretting his inability to be present. 

49. From the Eev. William Bacox Stevexs, D. D., dated Philadel- 
phia, November 19, 1854, regretting his inability to be present. 

50. From the Hon. William Beach Lawkexce, dated Ochre Point, 
Newport, E. I., November 21, 1854 : — 

"My arrangements Avere made to avail myself of the invitation of the 
committee of the New York Historical Society tor their anniversary ; but 
I was ycstci'day prevented, by my anxiety for the health of a near relative, 
from particii)atiiig in a convivial festival. 

''Under other circumstances, I should have been very much gratified 
to renew my associations with my old friends whom I expected to meet, 
while a recurrence of your celebration would have vividly recalled many 
events connected with a raerabersliip of thirty years' standing, and espe- 
cially the interesting incidents of your last decennial festival, when, in con- 
sequence of the early departure of the venerable chief, under whom it was 
my ha])piness to act in the foreign service of the country, as well as in the 
administration of the society, it became my duty, as your presidinL"- officer, 
to welcome another illustrious statesman, who, like your last President, 
has, full of years and of honors, terminated his earthly career. 

" I am convinced that no one then present will ever forget the thrilling 
feeling Avhich pervaded the whole assembly, when John Quincy Adams 
told us tliat he was there by the summons of Mr. Gallatin, who had added 
to the official invitation, " let us sJtake hands, once more, on this side of the 
grave.'''' I am sure that our venerated President required no sponsor, 
especially in the Historical Society, but should any future historian be 
disposed to misconstrue any act of his, we may rejjly to him the declara- 
tion of John Quincy Adams, 'I have known Albert Gallatin for fifty 
years, and been engaged with him repeatedly in the public service. We 
have been almost invariably opposed in our pf)litical opinions, but I have 
never known a more honest or a more honorable man.' I quote from re- 
membrance, and believe that I have not stated Mr. Adams's remark by 
any means as strongly as he made it. 

"At the decennial anniversary to which I have alluded, we had from 
our orator the fruits of that agency which has put New York in possession 
of her archives, and to have originated which is one of the society's tri- 
umphs; while the com]iletion of the semi-centennial list by the name of 
the ' historian of the United States,' carries us back some tliirty years, 
when the rare ability and distinguished learning, evinced in several occa- 
sional discourses, achieved for this branch of literature an independent re- 
cognition. Nor were the discourses before the Historical Society unwor- 
thy of a place, side by side, with those of the great statesmen and scholars 
of the East. If Boston had her Webster and lier Everett, New York had 
her Verplaiick and her Wlicaton. One of these addresses circumstances 
have recently brought to my i)articular notice ; and I had intended to al- 
lude to it, had it been my good fortune to attend jour celebration, in 
order to show what fruits, independently of the direct contributions to the 
declared objects of the Society, have been the results of your association. 
I refer to the discourse i)ronounced before the New York Historical Socie- 
tj-, in 1820, by Henry Whcaton, who, though an adojited citizen of New 
York, is looked to Avith just pride by the State, to which my allegiance is 
due, as a son of her soil. Having occui)ied whatever leisure my rural avo- 
cations for the last year afforded in the humble task of his aunotator, I 



93 

have found, in the History of the Science of Piihlic or International Law, 
the germ of those great work«, ■\vliich have placed tlie name of Wheaton 
imperishably in the same category with those of Grotius and Vattel, and 
which liave made him an authority in all the cabinets of Europe. Even 
at the time of the appearance of the discourse, it obtained from the vene- 
rable ex-President Jett'erson. and tlie elder Adams, commendations of no 
ordinary character; while Marshall wrote to the author, 'Old Hugo Gro- 
tius is indebted to you for your defence of him ajid his quotations; you 
have raised him, in my estimation, to the ranlc that he deserves.' The 
notice of it in the North American was from the pen of Edward Everett. 

"Not only in the case of Koszta, or on a question of diplomatic immu- 
nities, are the 'Elements of International Law' quoted, but in the late 
memorable debate in the British Parliament, on neutral rights, involving 
the policy of the recent 'declarations' of England and France, both Phil- 
limore and Sir W. Molesworth appealed to the American publicist as the 
highest authority extant. It is not, indeed, too much to say, that the 
place which Grotius filled, which Vattel, as a more modern writer, after- 
wards occupied, is now assigned to Wheaton. It is well known that after 
preliminary studies, of which the Historical Discourse is an evidence, and 
twenty years' distinguished service in Europe, Mr. Wheaton was recalled 
in a way that his associates abroad could not regard otherwise than as a 
disgrace, which, according to their system, admitted of no explanation. 
His friends know that with his sensitive disposition, his letter of recall 
proved his death warrant, and that no distinction that awaited him, in the 
cordial receiition of liis fellow-citizens of all parties in New York and else- 
Avhere, could avert the fatal blow. Among other papers of a similar im- 
port lying before me, is a note from the celebrated traveller and distin- 
guished philosopher. Baron Alex. Humboldt, who was also the personal 
friend and confidential counsellor of the King of Prussia, which, as attord- 
ing the best comment on the wisdom of a policy which makes the highest 
diplomatic appointments dependent on the moves of the political cliess- 
board, I am induced, though it is not very easy to decipher it, to transcribe. 
It is dated : 

"Potsdam, ce 18 Juin, 1846. 

"Le roi gdmit souvent sur votre depart. II sait combien vous nous 
etiez utile, et il ne con<^oit pas I'erreur d'un gouvernement qui se prive 
d'un tel appui. Je suis sur (pie le roi et la reine seront touches de la ddlieate 
attention du voyage de Madame Wheaton. Je ne puis encore me persua- 
der qu'on ne vous destine pas quolque grande place en Europe. Votre 
nom et celui de M. Gallatin restent liautement places, et vous avcz I'avan- 
tage sur lui d'excellens travaux historiques. C'est une grande et belle con- 
ception aussi que celle qui a ouvort la route du Nord des Etats-Unis, par 
Trieste an Levant, et dans 1' Inde. On vous le doit. Agreez je vous supplie, 
mon cher et respectable confrere, I'liommage de mon inalterable devoue- 
ment. "A. Humholdt." 

"My allusion to Mr. Wheaton's discourse would not liavo been with a 
view to his elogc^ but in order, as appropriate to a semi-centennial anni- 
versary, to refer to the new epoch in the law of nations which may well 
date from this year. When the address in question was delivered, the 
nations of Christendom had recently emerged from a series of wars, which 
had been conducted with an utter disregard of all neutral rights, leaving 
England with an unlimited sway on the ocean, and without, as on former 
occasions, the recognition in the treaties of peace, of any maritime princi- 
ples. The right which England claimed as a ])art of the law of nations, 
authorized a search of neutral vessels, not only for contraband of war, but 



94 

for enemy's goods, and when once on board, on a belligerent plea, she 
claimed, as incident to the right of search, the taking from our ships of any 
American seamen that her officers might choose to suspect to be of 
British origin. Hence impressment, and the war to which it gave rise. 
France, also, while she admitted that free ships made free goods, besides 
her repeated infractions of neutral rights by imperial decrees, maintained 
as a principle of her public law, for which there would seem to be no better 
reason tlian a verbal antithesis, that enemy shi])s make enemy goods. 

"Europe is again at war, and we are neutral. But how changed is 
our position. All the belligerents agree, not only tliat free ships make 
free goods, but, except in the special cases of blockade and contraband, 
entire inununity is accorded to neutral commerce ; and with that power 
which originated the armed neutrality of 1780, we have consecrated these 
principles by a treaty, to which we have invited all nations to accede. As 
to the rule of '56 and the colonial policy, they remain only as matters 
of history. In view of these circumstances, I cannot but look on the 
year 1854, when the riglits of neutral nations have been, for the first time 
during an actual European war, recognized by the great belligerent 
powers, as a new epoch in international law ; and that idea, had I been 
with you last evening, and had a suitable occasion presented, I should 
have presumed to embody in a toast. 

"I had intended merely to write a note of apology to show that, 
though my future lot is cast elsewhere, I am not insensible to the compli- 
ment which the invitation of the committee implied, nor forgetful of the 
State to winch I owe my nativity, nor t(j her historical reputation ; but I 
find that tliinking of your Society has led me into a proli.xity, for which 
even my thirty years' membership can scarce serve as an adequate ex- 
cuse." 

51. From Sir Archibald x\.lison, dated Glasgow, December 1, 1854, 
regretting his inability to be present. 

52. From Frrz-GfiEENE IIalleck, Esq., dated Guilford, Connecticut, 
November 22, 1854, regretting that in consequence of his absence from 
home, he had been unable to acknowledge or accept the invitation of the 
committee. 

53. From E. Schleiden, Esq., Bremen Minister Eesideut, dated New 
Orleans, December 8, 1854, regretting tliat his absence in Cuba, had made 
it impossible for him to acknowledge or accept the invitation of the com- 
mittee. 

54. From Geoege Gibbs, Esq., dated Steilacoom, Washington Terri- 
tory, November 18, 1854, as follows: — 

"I have the honor to acknowledge your invitation to attend the semi- 
centennial festival of tlie New York Historical Society, and regret that 
tiie unfinished state of the Pacific Railroad will prevent my reacliing your 
city in season. I trust, however, that at the Centennial^ that important 
work will itself have become an historical tact, and tliat the guests who 
may have the honor then to represent the State of Washington at your 
board, in commemorating the event, will sympathize with the disappoint- 
ment of their forefather. 

" In the retrospect of that half century which you are about to cele- 
brate, few events have occurred more remarkable than tlie recent estab- 



95 

lisliraent of American power upon the Pacific. Known only till within 
the last few years as a remote and savage region, the western shore of tlie 
great South Sea has sprung suddenly into an importance that we can as 
yet but partially estimate. Its prominence in the future relations of our 
country is a subject of magnificent speculation rather than of foresight. 
Confronting, as it does, in its infant strength, the most ancient of existing 
kingdoms, now tottering in decay, the thoughts of its people already turn 
to that further strand, the eastern verge of the Old World, with the pre- 
sage that at no distant period they may reach that also. 

" But to us as a people there as yet belongs no history. The structure 
of our society is of yesterday. Beyond that, our only record is of indi- 
viduals. The discoverer, and his successor, the hunter, appertain to what 
may be considered as the romantic age ; though to them the reality was 
stern enough. Except in the tradition of personal adventure, they have 
left no impress behind. They have not, like Cortez and Boone elsewhere, 
been the founders of the state. The impulse which peopled the territory 
lias obliterated even tiieir landmarks. 

" To the farthest West there is, however, the future; and if you will, 
in this connection, accept a toast, (for I presume the 'other apin-opriate 
proceedings,' to which you refer, include a dinner), I will olFer, nunc ^;r«> 
tunc : — 

" The Hereafter of the Pacific States. May it be as glorious as the Past of 
their Atlantic sisters." 



96 



OFFICERS AT THE DINNER. 

President. 

LUTHEE BEADISn. 



Vice-Presidents. 



FREDERIC DE PETSTEE. 
-TAMES W. GERARD. 
WILLIAM ADAMS. 
ERASTUS C. BENEDICT. 



JAMES DE PEYSTER OGDEN. 
WILLIAM W. CAMPBELL. 
JOSEPH BLUNT. 
JOHN EOMETN BEODHEAD. 



Stewards. 



AUGUSTUS SCHELL.* 
BEN.TAMIN E. WINTHEOP. 
BENJAMIN II. FIELD. 
JOSEPH B. VAENUM, Jr. 
WORTIIINGTON EOMAINE. 
JOHN JAY. 

ARCHIBALD S. VAN DUZEE. 
Ill RAM FULLER. 
WILLIAM P. LEE. 
JAMES HUMPHREY. 
CHARLES GOULD. 
LUTHER R. MARSH. 
WILLIAM C. RUSSELL. 
JOHN H. WHITE. 
RICHARD E. MOUNT, Jr. 
EDWARD SLOSSON. 



JOHN P. CROSBY. 
WILLIAM K. STRONG. 
CHARLES R. SWORDS. 
WILLIAM B. TAYLOE. 
JOHN VAN BUREN. 
JOHN D. CLUTE. 
PROSPER M. WETMORE. 
EUFUS W. GEISWOLD. 
GEORGE J. CORNELL. 
HENRY G. STEBBINS. 
GEORGE H. MOORE. 
M. DUDLEY BEAN. 
O. DE FOREST GRANT. 
J. WINTHROP CHANLER. 
EDWIN J. BROWN. 



COMMITTEE OF PUBLICATION. 

GEORGE II. MODRK. 
ANDREW WARNER. 
BENJ. E. WINTUEOP. 






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